Pubdate: Fri, 11 Aug 2000
Source: Associated Press
Copyright: 2000 Associated Press
Author: Connie Cass

CANINE MANAGERS ALLEGE RETALIATION

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Eight months into office, Customs
Commissioner Raymond Kelly invited employees to suggest improvements.
Five senior managers who did -- urging changes in the drug-sniffing
dog program -- claim they were transferred from their longtime posts
as punishment.

Now three sets of investigators are probing whether the transfers were
retaliation for a letter they wrote to Kelly.

The Customs Service denies any retaliation, saying the transfers last
September were part of an ongoing effort to fix serious problems
within the canine program, particularly at the Front Royal, Va.,
center where new dogs and handlers learn to ferret out marijuana,
cocaine and heroin.

All sides agree the center was troubled.

Customs reviews last year found it failed to turn out enough trained
dogs to meet increased demand; didn't ensure proper training; was lax
in tracking narcotic training aides; lacked enough staff to exercise
the dogs; and offered poor veterinary care, such as failure to
quarantine new animals.

Even litters of puppies specially bred by Customs risked exposure to
disease.

``We saw a real decrease in the quality of the dogs that were coming
out of there,'' said Bob Gruetter, 51, who was canine program officer
before he took early retirement to avoid a transfer from Washington
headquarters to San Diego.

Gruetter authored the group letter telling Kelly the canine program
was ``badly managed'' from above.

Eleven officials took part in the letter. Among them, Gruetter and
four other senior managers were transferred to new posts hundreds of
miles away. Four have filed official protests; the fifth also blames
retaliation.

Customs spokesman Dennis Murphy said three other canine officials --
including the training center's director -- also were transferred last
year. Because of those and other efforts, the training center ``has
turned a corner,'' he said.

``A directed reassignment is not a punitive action. It's a management
tool,'' Murphy said. Reassignments were used sparingly during the
decade before Kelly arrived in August 1998, but the commissioner has
supported increased use of reassignments because he ``believes in
putting the right person in the right job,'' Murphy said.

The employees' complaints have sparked investigations by Customs'
internal affairs, the Treasury Department inspector general and the
U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which protects federal
whistleblowers.

Gruetter traces the transfers to his April 22, 1999, letter seeking
more autonomy for the canine program and asking that it be moved from
the Office of Field Operations to the Office of Investigations, which
oversees air and sea drug interdiction programs.

It also suggested Customs misled Congress by asking for more canine
funding when many canine positions weren't filled and the money was
used for other things.

``It was meant to help Customs. It was not in any way meant to slap
anybody in the face,'' said Chuck Meaders, chief of the canine program
in Miami for 12 years. He was too disillusioned to complain about his
transfer to Calexico, Calif. ``What happened, it's a total destruction
of people's lives,'' he said.

But Murphy said the transfers stemmed from reform efforts begun months
before Gruetter penned his suggestion, when the commissioner received
an anonymous letter about the training center in November 1998.

Those who were transferred said they received hints their letter had
landed them in the doghouse with their bosses in Field Operations.

In May, a headquarters official claiming to speak for assistant
commissioner of field operations Charles Winwood -- since promoted to
deputy commissioner -- cited the letter at a briefing for Customs
employees in San Diego.

According to one inspector's notes of the meeting, the official said
``the Canine Program was now in Mr. Winwood's 'sights,' and that was
not a good place to be, this was due in part to letter written by 16
(sic) canine managers to the commissioner.''

And when San Diego canine chief Tom Iverson followed up with a
separate letter telling Kelly that the shortage of dogs was a ``crisis
situation,'' one of his local bosses got a stern e-mail.

``I am very disappointed that your managers have decided to deal
directly with the commissioner on canine issues,'' wrote James
Engleman, then national chief of the canine program.

Jeffrey Gabel, transferred from Chicago branch chief to instructor in
Front Royal, Va., suggests the five were singled out from among the
letter signers for transfers because ``we've been outspoken critics''
for years.

Morris Berkowitz said he protested his transfer from New York to the
training center as retaliatory, but couldn't say more ``because I'm
still working.''

Not Iverson. After 22 years with Customs, the San Diego canine chief
took worker's compensation rather than transfer from his desk job to a
physically active post at the Virginia training center.

``At first, I was very angry,'' Iverson said. ``In hindsight, it was
the best thing that ever happened to me. You don't need to be working
at an agency that can deceive you and be that nasty.''
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