{"id":45016,"date":"2019-10-10T17:15:44","date_gmt":"2019-10-10T21:15:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=45016"},"modified":"2019-10-10T17:15:56","modified_gmt":"2019-10-10T21:15:56","slug":"has-nepotism-found-its-way-into-the-lehigh-acres-fire-district-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2019\/10\/has-nepotism-found-its-way-into-the-lehigh-acres-fire-district-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Has Nepotism Found Its Way into the Lehigh Acres Fire District???"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Union Contract signed off on Feb 26, 2019<\/strong>, by both parties<\/strong> \u2013 2019-2020 budget signed off September 24, 2019 \u2013 Board votes 3-2 to reopen wage talks with union October 9, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Has Fire Commissioner Chairperson Cathy Kruse broken the nepotism laws in the State of Florida she and board have control over the budget and the union contract of the Lehigh Acres Fire District \u2014 Her son works for the Lehigh Acres Fire District?<\/em><\/strong> Firefighter EMT Kruse making 62,984.64 a year<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Has Fire Commissioner Chairperson Cia Sherman broken the nepotism laws in the State of Florida she and board have control over the budget and the union contract of the Lehigh Acres Fire District \u2014 Her husband works for the Lehigh Acres Fire District?<\/em><\/strong> Firefighter Engineer Sherman making 58,548.672 a year recent promoted to Engineer<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On January 9, 2019, FireBoard Attorney sent a letter to the Florida Commission on Ethics (click here to read it<\/a>) here is the response dated January 14, 2019 (click here<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have three Commissioners broken the Fair\u00a0Labor\u00a0Standards Act (FLSA)\u00a0It is well known that the federal\u00a0Fair Labor Standards Act\u00a0(FLSA) prevails over any contrary provision in a collective bargaining\u00a0agreement?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under\u00a0Florida\u00a0law, public officials are banned from “appointing, promoting, employing, advancing or advocating for an appointment, employment, promotion, or advancement in or to a position in the agency in which he serves or over which he exercises jurisdiction or control any individual who is a relative.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is considered nepotism?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nepotism Law and Legal Definition. In the business\nworld, nepotism is the practice of showing favoritism toward one’s\nfamily members or friends in economic or employment terms. For example,\ngranting favors or jobs to friends and relatives, without regard to merit, is a\nform of nepotism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is nepotism illegal in Florida?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most states have laws against the practice\nof nepotism, and many companies have policies that strictly forbid these\ntypes of acts. Florida is no different. The state has a statute with\na number of clauses that deal with nepotism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Florida Statute <\/strong>112.3135<\/strong><\/a>\u2003Restriction on employment of relatives.\u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(1)\u2003In this section, unless the context otherwise requires:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(a)\u2003\u201cAgency\u201d means:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1.\u2003A state agency, except an institution under the\njurisdiction of the Board of Governors of the State University System;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2.\u2003An office, agency, or other establishment in the\nlegislative branch;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3.\u2003An office, agency, or other establishment in the judicial\nbranch;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4.\u2003A county;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5.\u2003A city; and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6.\u2003Any other political subdivision of the state, except a\ndistrict school board or community college district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(b)\u2003\u201cCollegial body\u201d means a governmental entity marked by\npower or authority vested equally in each of a number of colleagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(c)\u2003\u201cPublic official\u201d means an officer, including a member\nof the Legislature, the Governor, and a member of the Cabinet, or an employee\nof an agency in whom is vested the authority by law, rule, or regulation, or to\nwhom the authority has been delegated, to appoint, employ, promote, or advance\nindividuals or to recommend individuals for appointment, employment, promotion,\nor advancement in connection with employment in an agency, including the\nauthority as a member of a collegial body to vote on the appointment,\nemployment, promotion, or advancement of individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(d)\u2003\u201cRelative,\u201d for purposes of this section only, with\nrespect to a public official, means an individual who is related to the public\nofficial as father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, first\ncousin, nephew, niece, husband, wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law,\ndaughter-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, stepfather, stepmother,\nstepson, stepdaughter, stepbrother, stepsister, half brother, or half sister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(2)(a)\u2003A public official may not appoint, employ, promote,\nor advance, or advocate for appointment, employment, promotion, or advancement,\nin or to a position in the agency in which the official is serving or over\nwhich the official exercises jurisdiction or control any individual who is a\nrelative of the public official. An individual may not be appointed, employed,\npromoted, or advanced in or to a position in an agency if such appointment,\nemployment, promotion, or advancement has been advocated by a public official,\nserving in or exercising jurisdiction or control over the agency, who is a\nrelative of the individual or if such appointment, employment, promotion, or\nadvancement is made by a collegial body of which a relative of the individual\nis a member. However, this subsection shall not apply to appointments to boards\nother than those with land-planning or zoning responsibilities in those\nmunicipalities with less than 35,000 population. This subsection does not apply\nto persons serving in a volunteer capacity who provide emergency medical,\nfirefighting, or police services. Such persons may receive, without losing\ntheir volunteer status, reimbursements for the costs of any training they get\nrelating to the provision of volunteer emergency medical, firefighting, or\npolice services and payment for any incidental expenses relating to those\nservices that they provide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(b)\u2003Mere approval of budgets shall not be sufficient to\nconstitute \u201cjurisdiction or control\u201d for the purposes of this section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(3)\u2003An agency may prescribe regulations authorizing the\ntemporary employment, in the event of an emergency as defined in s. 252.34<\/a>,\nof individuals whose employment would be otherwise prohibited by this section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Union Contract signed off on Feb 26, 2019, by both parties \u2013 2019-2020 budget signed off September 24, 2019 \u2013 Board votes 3-2 to reopen wage talks with union October… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":45019,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45016"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}