The City of Pine Bluff Administration Committee on Thursday voted to reinstate an employee who was fired for failing a drug test following an accident in a city vehicle.
The committee’s decision will go to the Pine Bluff City Council for a final vote at its next meeting.
Hodges Stewart, 36, was fired from the Animal Control Division on November 29 for violating the City of Pine Bluff’s zero-tolerance drug-free work place policy. Stewart denied he had taken drugs and appealed the decision.
Stewart told the committee that on October 9 a motorist ran a stop sign and struck the city vehicle he was driving, totaling it. He said he was then taken to Jefferson County Medical Center, where he underwent a urine test. City of Pine Bluff employees are required to take drug tests after accidents, according to the city’s Non-Uniformed Employees Handbook.
City of Pine Bluff Human Resources Director Vickie Conaway wrote in a statement that she received a call on November 15 notifying her that a urine sample from the City of Pine Bluff had not been picked up from JCMC for testing.
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Conaway said that she asked if the sample was viable. Informed that it was, she asked the hospital to test the sample. She later determined that the test was from Stewart, and that he had been in an accident on October 9.
The results for the test came back positive on November 17. Conaway said she called Pine Bluff Assistant Police Chief Ivan Whitfield and informed him that Stewart would have to be terminated per the city’s zero-tolerance policy. The Animal Control Division is under the supervision of the police department.
Conaway said the process is handled in Human Resources for consistency and to avoid any kind of bias. She said she had fired four other employees for failing drug tests.
Whitfield wrote in a statement that he told Police Chief Jeff Hubanks that he was “not comfortable with a 30-day drug test and having to fire an employee.” Whitfield also said during the Administration Committee hearing yesterday that he was aware of work that Stewart had done with youth in the community.
Stewart was placed on administrative leave until Conaway returned from vacation on Monday, November 28.
Whitfield and Hubanks agreed to ask Stewart to take a hair follicle drug test, which can detect specific drugs used by a person dating back three months, Whitfield said. Conaway wrote that “my assumption for this being done was because Mr. Stewart was adamant that his test was not positive, so they were giving him a second chance to prove himself. [Whitfield] said that Chief Hubanks did not agree.”
Because the second test would deviate from the zero-tolerance policy, Conaway wrote that she asked Mayor Debe Hollingsworth to approve it. Hollingsworth did so.
Whitfield wrote that when notified of the test, Hodges told him that “he had been around people that smoke but he doesn’t smoke. He was concerned that the content may have gotten into his system that way. I advised him that it doesn’t work that way.”
Stewart was scheduled to take the hair follicle test on November 29 but decided not to, stating that he would need to contact his attorney, Conaway wrote.
He was fired that day for refusing to take a drug test and appealed the same day.
Stewart told the Administration Committee that he had asked the nurse after finishing his test on Oct. 9, “Are we good to go?” and that she had said yes. He said he had interpreted that to mean that he had passed, he said.
Stewart said that he did not feel the urine sample was valid after more than 30 days. He had taken another urine test on November 21 that came back negative, he said. He also said that he had been in rooms “where kids were smoking,” and that his system might have been contaminated. Furthermore, he said that he was not at fault during the accident.
“I was not the one driving around messing up the vehicles,” he said. “I was the victim.”
While discussing whether to reinstate Stewart, Administration Committee member George Stepps said he was troubled by the length of time it had taken to test the sample.
“There has to be some time limits, because they know a person’s job depends on it,” Stepps said.
Committee member Glen Brown, Sr. asked Conaway how long test results usually take to return. Two days, Conaway responded.
The committee, comprised of Aldermen Stepps, Brown, Sr. and Thelma Walker, with Aldermen Lloyd Holcomb, Jr. and Glen Brown, Jr. present, then met privately in executive session.
After Stepps called the meeting back to order, Brown, Sr. recommended that Stewart be reinstated to his job, with all benefits and back pay for the time he was off.
Brown, Sr. later told The Commercial in a telephone interview that committee members felt that the hospital had let Stewart down by conducting the test more than a month after the sample was taken. They were also persuaded by his community service, he said.
“[The hospital] didn’t follow through on the things they should have done after he took the drug test, and that was the key reason why we reinstated him,” Brown, Sr. said.
Brown, Sr. also said it was not clear-cut that Stewart had done anything wrong, and that “the city pays out a lot of money to lawsuits that are not clear-cut.”
He added that he had known Stewart, whose father is a pastor, since he was a boy and felt confident in his character. That consideration did not factor into the decision, though, he said.
The rate at which the council overturns suspensions is higher than five other Arkansas cities of similar size, according to an analysis performed by The Commercial in January 2016.
The Pine Bluff City Council overturned two terminations and three suspensions of municipal employees between January 2015 and January 2016. The council upheld one termination but no suspensions against municipal employees during that time.
Stepps, Brown and Walker, who make the recommendations to the council, stood by their recommendations at that time when asked by The Commercial.
“Everybody needs a chance to make sure it is right,” Walker said. “There should not be a problem. I feel like everyone should have a chance to feel like they are treated fairly.”
Hollingsworth told The Commercial in January that she is “very respectful of the department heads’ decisions. I do think the administration committee in many instances should have backed department heads.”