ST. LOUIS — The powerful director of the city’s personnel department went on medical leave this week amid a state investigation into complaints about office management.
Personnel Director Sonya Jenkins-Gray confirmed the leave Friday, saying she had left the office in an ambulance Thursday.
“I’ve got some medical things,” she said in a brief interview. “I’m hoping to hear from my doctor shortly.”
Jenkins-Gray
The Rev. Darryl Gray, Jenkins-Gray’s husband and a noted social justice activist, said later that the issue was stress-related.
Deputy Director Sylvia Donaldson relayed the news to the department Friday, and said Jenkins-Gray appointed her to serve as acting director in her absence.
The announcement is the latest twist for a department that oversees one of the most important functions in city government: the hiring, firing, payment and promotion of more than 4,000 civil service employees. It comes at a difficult time: Nearly a third of city jobs were vacant as of earlier this year, leaving the department with a Herculean task to fill the holes. And aldermen recently greenlit a state audit of the department in response to whistleblower complaints of mismanagement.
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Neither Jenkins-Gray nor Mayor Tishaura O. Jones expressed concern about the audit when it was authorized in late June.
A preliminary state investigation into one whistleblower complaint conceded that auditors found “no indication of fraud or corruption,” or direct evidence that any rules were broken.
But since the initial complaint was lodged, several others have been forwarded to the state auditor’s office. And a source familiar with the complaints said Friday they included concerns about the Rev. Gray making regular appearances in personnel department offices and influencing policy.
Gray said he was not aware of any such complaints, and was surprised to hear them. “I don’t know enough about personnel or civil service to influence policy,” he said. He also noted that there are no rules prohibiting him from visiting his wife at work.
Jenkins-Gray and Jones were recently on opposite sides of a debate over whether to change protections for the personnel director’s job.
Unlike in other city departments, once a personnel director is hired, they can’t be fired except through a process that includes formal charges of malfeasance. That setup, formalized in the city charter, has allowed personnel directors to serve long tenures across multiple mayoral administrations and exercise considerable independence.
Earlier this year, Jones asked a citizen commission tasked with recommending changes to the charter to consider a new setup giving the mayor hiring and firing power over the director. Jenkins-Gray opposed the idea. Ultimately, the commission did not make any recommendation on the matter.
Jacob Barker of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
View life in St. Louis through the Post-Dispatch photographers' lenses. Edited by Jenna Jones.
