The following contains selected comments shared at a
Legislative Personnel Committee meeting where the
qualifications of a woman hired as a sign language
interpreter were discussed.
Comments from State Work Force Director Bill
“I think the thing that disturbs me the most is that perhaps when the
information was disseminated…and I think we’ll answer all these
questions and concerns that you have and any others that you would
want to ask…I think I saw the worst in journalism on Channel 7…
because they told one side of the story. And it was based on allegations
and innuendos and lies. Very, very few facts. And I’m disappointed
because I think it scared people that we serve. And I think those people
deserve answers. And I think they deserve facts. And I think that they
didn’t get that. And quite frankly I think they are due an apology.”
(
“I want you to know that we didn’t just start working on this. Mr. West
started this process back on the 27th…when he asked for this information.
“I’m appreciative of Senator Williams…Eddie Joe Williams…who himself heard this concern. He investigated it. We responded to him. And he seemed to be satisfied. Then he (West) went on to talk to Max Brantley and raise his complaint with him. We responded to numerous FOI requests on May 7th…the 7th…and then he decided he wanted to go…I should add one other thing that is not on here…he did go to the Governor’s office. His staff sat with us, we met on this issue, we looked at the files…everybody agreed she met the minimum qualifications. They were satisfied. Then he went on to Jason Pederson at Channel 7. When I talked to Jason not one thing that I mentioned to him did he
say. Not one.”
(Viewers are welcome to review the four stories reported
so far and decide on their own if this allegation has merit).
Mr. Walker’s responses to questions
regarding how
the hiring process works at
Services and
questions about the selected candidate’s
qualifications compared to other applicants:
“We’ve got people right now that manage this process extremely well...
very effective…that this community is totally comfortable with…that
has no QAST level and no certification. That such man happens to be
the manager of the whole section…Mr. David McDonald. No
certification. No QAST level. And he manages everybody here.
Cheryl Stubbs when she came had no national certification. Now I’m
saying we can require all we want to. But we have to look at whether
or not we can take people, recruit people and help them to get where
we want
them to be so that they’ll stay with us.
This lady right here (pointing at poster board) has done a good job in
(Committee Chair Rep. Bryan King) “She doesn’t have that right now?”
(
(Carl Daughtery interjects) She has a QAST level? OK. She has a QAST
level. But not national certification. She’s been with us for how long?
10 years? 10 years at the center. Does a great job.”
(Committee chair) “When did she receive her QAST level?”
(
I can find that out if you would like to know that.”
“Now does she (the
selected candidate) have national certification? The answer is no. She does not.
Is she interested? Is she
willing? Does she desire to achieve national
certification? Absolutely. Are we going to support her in doing so? You betchya. And why would we do that? I’m proud to say that we do that for many of
our employees. We have a young lady who
now heads up the section of sign language…came to us a few years ago…had no
national certification. She met other
requirements…but she was willing. We
supported that. We sent her to
school. We paid for her training. We paid for the test she took to achieve
national certification. Not only did she
get it but she qualified and she went on to work and now she has been promoted
to section leader. The manager that
manages all of the sign folk has no national certification and no QAST
level. Zero. Good guy.
All these folks back here (referring to the deaf people in the audience) know David. He’s been doing it for years. Nobody has ever, ever raised the question of
his credentials, his certification, his training, his
QAST level. Nobody ever said anything
about the job description that has
been the same for more than 10 years. We
didn’t create it. We didn’t change
it. But it has worked for us…very
well. Because we have been able to attract people and help them
and support them and train them and they stayed with
us. We’ve got another employee in this
section. She signs for us. Has no national certification. She has been with us for more than 10 years down at
ATCI down in
“If we had taken the position that we want the criteria to be that we
want to have these high QAST levels if you will…that we want to
have this national certification if you will…then there would be
nobody in our department today that would qualify…then. They
would not have qualified when they came to us. They would not
have. And they’re good people who do a good job and they have
performed and served many of these people very well. So…it’s
what we do. And it is not unusual. And had we made a decision
strictly and absolutely on certification…you would be right. But
we don’t make decisions just on…I could give you a lot of examples
of the people that are most qualified who are perhaps not the best
workers. They lack passion. They lack commitment. They lack
loyalty. They lack the purpose in what we are looking for in our
employees. Many of them they may come just to get a job and then
move on to another one. Remember now…we can set
qualifications as high as we want to…we got to get our pay levels
up there as well. Many of our folks deserve to be paid a whole
lot more and state government just has historically not been able to
offer that to people.”
(Committee chair) “But in this case we had people with certifications
that were applying for the job and knew how much they were going
to make.”
(
mean I didn’t go into the reasons why we didn’t select someone. I did
look into why we selected someone because that was the point of
discussion. And I’m not here to disparage anyone. There could have
been several reasons why we chose not to hire somebody because they
met qualifications. We could have somebody that meets qualifications
that had just been released from prison. I don’t know. We can have
them look at that if that is important. We made the best decision based
on what we had for somebody to meet the needs that we had at that time.
and we looked at it from the total picture. It wasn’t about the test scores.”
“This lady (the chosen candidate) has worked for us for almost six months. She has done everything we have asked her to do…including enroll in school to get this training…this certification.”
Comments from committee Vice Chair Rep. David “Bubba Powers
“It appears we threw the preferred qualifications out the window.”
“If she didn’t score well on the test and if those preferred
qualifications…we had other applicants…I certainly understand
why the crowd is here today. And again I think you have made
a compelling argument for your hire. But…I certainly understand
why the folks have a concern about this. And frankly if we hired
her for her passion and her work experience and some of the
things that you might have mentioned earlier I don’t disagree with
that. But…there is a perception. How much of it is true, how much
is not true, I don’t know. But I suspect in the end you are going to
be able to defend your hire no matter what venue we talk about this
in. But I do have a bit of a concern that we bypassed what seem to
us…and we weren’t involved in the entire process…but it seems
that some folks were overlooked and I think that is why we are here
today.”
Comment from Carl Daughtery,
the man who selected the
candidate in question and sent it to his
superior Bob Trevino
for approval, after being asked by the Vice Chair what it was
about the candidate he picked that elevated her above the other
qualified candidates who applied:
“Certainly Mr. West and Ms. Thomas certainly had national
certification and commendable…they’ve done a good job with
the agency and I really appreciate their commitment to the agency
when it comes to helping the community. Now the same thing
what the director said I will refer back to…her experience and to
have an individual in her family who was deaf. The volunteering
that she does with DHS and with the churches. Her 20 years
experience as an employee. And certainly with our agency, you
know, there are certain cases that are definitely preferred. But if
we see an individual that we want to support…and certainly this
agency…Arkansas Rehabilitation Services…we have always
advocated for the underdog. And I certainly want to apologize to
the community. When this ad (KATV report) aired…I gotta tell
you…I know you all (the gallery) was scared…afraid. I was scared.
My son yelled at me…Daddy you on TV. And I want to thank Mr.
West because when it all aired…the way Mr. Pederson aired this
around…certainly my wife and all my family had some issues with
this. So I do want to thank Mr. West for apologizing to me
(cough/inaudible)…for the way your family and everybody had been
represented the way Mr. Pederson didn’t ask anybody about this. Let
me just say that was an issue. But let me get back to the experience…
I really felt like since we advocate for people with disabilities and we
as an agency…here was an opportunity where we wanted to support
this individual and felt that she would be qualified and could
potentially be a good interpreter if we growed and supported that.”
Interview
with Dr. Glen Anderson (who is deaf),
formerly
Dir. of Training for the Research Training
Center
on Deafness for the U of A system:
Q: Is having a deaf relative, signing in church and taking some
college courses and adequate substitute for certification?
“No. The answer is no. Because church interpreting is different
from professional interpreting. The number of deaf people who
attend church reflects maybe a small number of people. What we
are talking about is everyday life, you know, people on their jobs,
medical appointments, mental health issues, far more complex than
church interpreting. So it cannot be substituted. No sir. You need
to be certified to be a professional interpreter.”
Q: What does the deaf community think about this hire?
“The deaf community is not very happy. It is an insult to both the
deaf community and the professional interpreting community. We
expected the agencies to follow high standards in their hires of
interpreters.”
Q: Is there anything you would like to add?
“Obviously she is not qualified for the position. I’m happy that we
had this hearing. I think that it is good that the legislators could hear
about this situation. And hopefully there will be some positive
resolutions to this.”
Interview
with Bill Walker, State Workforce Director
“You were asked at one point of the meeting if (the chosen candidate)
could do what the interpreters were doing for the gallery here…and you said yes.”
“Yes, I did.”
“You’ve seen this document when she was interviewed by David
McDonald and was shown a video on sign language. Mr.
McDonald noted that she did not understand the English or the
American Sign Language.”
(
“How do you justify what you told the committee with Mr.
McDonald’s assessment of her ability?”
“I justify it based on her 25 years of experience doing sign language.”
“She had that experience when she took this test, right?”
“Let me answer your question. Do you want me to answer your
Question?”
“I do.”
“I justify it with 25 years of experience with sign language. I also
justify it with her community outreach and her educational
background where she in college level courses took sign language
and passed those courses. It was part of her minor that you have
never mentioned before in your reporting. So that is how I justify it.”
“If she could sign what was going on here today why does she need
to enroll in a class at UALR?”
“She is pursuing the class for the purposes of seeking national
certification. So that is a process that you go through for the
national certification. It is the same process that we used for the
lady who is now manager of that section. She went through the
same process to seek and get her national certification using the same
job description, the same criteria, everything. Nothing is different…
except two different people.”
“This candidate already beat out six candidates with national
certification. Why seek the certification now?”
“Well because we don’t limit it to certification only. We made a
decision based on the totality of the issues. You were here in the
committee when I discussed those issues. We looked at her
educational background, we looked at her work background, we
looked at her community experience, we looked at her
commitment. We looked at a lot of different things when we made a
decision to hire this person. Now what I did not know and what I am
not aware of is what we looked at with the other candidates that they
perhaps did not meet up to. And I’m not sure that that is helpful in the
process. But my point is we looked at all of that and we made on the
totality of all of that information combined. Not just on a score.
If all we were going to do was hire a person because they had
certification or a high score then all we needed to do was just let
them test and not talk to them at all. We went through a interview
process. We do that with all of our employees. We pick the top 3
employees and we made a decision based on that as the person we
wanted to hire and bring on to the agency.”
“Was Mr. McDonald mistaken when he noted that she did not
understand English or ASL?”
“I think you would need to ask him that question.”
“Well he is not here.”
“O.K. Well you can call him.”
“Have you asked him that?”
“No I haven’t.”
“You’ve never asked him ‘Why did you write that in your notes? We
hired a woman and you said she didn’t understand English or ASL.”
“I didn’t ask him.”
“Do you intend to?”
“Ah…not really. I’m comfortable with the decision that was made.”
“Anything you would like to add?”
“I just hope that you will be fair in your reporting and cover the whole
story and report all the facts.”
“Do you recall telling me you have a personal policy not to discuss
personnel matters with the media?”
“Yes I do. I remember that.”
“I did call you and seek your opinion on this.”
“You did. But I also shared with you a lot of information. What you
had asked me for was an interview. And what I said to you was we
will answer all of your questions, we’ll give you all this information…
which we did…but then I had a personal policy…agency policy…
practice rather…that we don’t do interviews on personnel matters.”
“Not an agency practice…it’s a personal policy.”
“No…it’s a practice.”
“There is nothing in writing that says the agency can’t discuss
personnel matters.”
“It’s not a policy. It’s an agency practice. There is a difference. And
the agency practice has been that in personnel matters we don’t do
on camera interviews. But we provided you everything you asked for
Jason and more. Everything. We didn’t deny you anything. You had
the information.”
“I wasn’t told she signed at church for 10 years.”
“Did you ask that question?”
“OK…I didn’t ask every possible question about the candidate.”
“But even the answers we gave you…you didn’t report. You didn’t
share anything that I gave you when I gave you all that information.
not one thing.”
“Actually I could show you my report and contradict that statement.”
“I’ve seen it…but afraid I didn’t see much of that. What I did see was
you go out and say the reason she got the job was because she worked
with Premier Funeral Home.”
“What I said was she listed you on her employment history.”
“And she disclosed that. That was disclosed. Is that wrong?”
“It might actually have benefitted her.”
“Well, OK. You have that opinion. I have a different one. I think she
is a great state employee…has been for over 20 years. And I think
that matters.”
“And I think she has got the practical experience, she has got the
educational experience, I think those things matter. And I think she
ought to be treated fairly.”