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Wlaf1450Findings will result in “tightening up of some LUB policies” and changing of others
By Charlotte Underwood
LAFOLLETTE, TN (WLAF)- The findings of a grievance submitted by utility employee Eric Griffith against the utility back in January were discussed at Monday’s LaFollette Utility Board meeting. The findings will result in the “tightening up of some LUB policies” and the changing of others, especially regarding the threshold spending amount by the general manager.
LaFollette Utility Board Attorney Reid Troutman spoke regarding the findings, as did interim LUB General Manager Keith Atkins.
According to Troutman, the grievance was looked at in “two different ways.”
“We looked at it in two different grievances in one, so basically, the first grievance was against employees and interactions with employees, and the second part of the grievance is he made allegations of wrong doings from a purchasing standpoint,” Troutman said.
Originally, board chairman Jay Willoughby was going to take the lead in speaking with employees, but after interviewing around seven people, he had health issues that stopped that process.
Troutman said he looked at the wrongful allegations portion of the grievance and that interim GM Atkins looked at the employee portion of it.
Troutman said he could speak to the allegations part of the grievance. He went over the process and said within the first week of the grievance being filed, he had notified the comptroller and said these are the allegations being made against the utility.
“We did that for your own (LUBs) protection; I think at this point, I told them we would be conducting an investigation internally and they sit back and they want to see what we do. So, at the end of the day, there were three parts to those alleged wrongdoings,” Troutman said. He also told the board, a third-party investigator had looked at this as well. And said we would be investigating it internally.
Troutman said the first allegation was regarding former General Manager Regina Kennedy’s husband doing contracting work for the utility.
“No wrongdoing there, Mrs. Kennedy had disclosed that to our auditors as a third-party relation, they give questionnaires and she disclosed that, so that was pretty easy to handle; the second part we had a third-party investigator to look at it. He interviewed several folks into the allegations of personal use of LUB’s garage for working on equipment and personal matters for LUB employees.
“He interviewed several people in the garage and did have a finding that for the most part, that is widely done, not that that makes it right, but there was not one individual doing that, there were several people doing that, it was multiple employees … that allegation is resolved simply by us looking at our personnel policy, looking at our policy as to LUB resources being used for private use and tightening that up and making sure it is enforced,” Troutman said.
The other allegation regarded the “breaking down or manipulating contracts to the point of getting them under the $100,000 threshold and avoiding the bidding process.
“There are other things that were discovered. The bottom line is our purchasing is not good, and we need to do lots better …it’s just not, it’s been going on a while, it is not something that was generated by him, it generated many years ago, but we need to review it; we have already dropped the threshold down to $50,000 for the manager spending limit, but I think we need to go a lot further and be much more hands on regarding our purchasing and our new manager needs to be looped in here and be a part of the redrafting of a purchasing policy that will be a big change,” Troutman said.
“We can’t look at a little wrong and say it’s OK,” Willoughby agreed.
He also asked that “as far as using LUB’s garage for private use to “get the word out no more.”
Atkins said that the word had already been sent out to all employees.
Troutman said he would let the state comptroller know the findings of the grievances, but reiterated that “nothing illegal was found,” just “not good spending practices.”
Utility board member Laura Byrge said she wanted to note that it was a practice that had not started under the interim or the last general manager.
“That is a practice that has been in place many, many years. It is not something that was done under Keith, under Regina, it was prior administration, again we are not advocating that is OK because it’s been done, we are saying that we do need to tighten that up and do it correctly moving forward and that is what we plan to do; and as Reid stated we are going to make the comptroller aware of that and that’s where we land, we now know about it, we are now going to correct it and now move forward and do it the right way,” Byrge said.
Willoughby said he appreciated this issue being brought to the board by the employees and Byrge agreed.
“This is a good thing, it is communication,” Willoughby said.
“One of the accusations was asking Eric Griffith to lower the score of an employee evaluation, so Mrs. Kennedy was concerned about the excessive absenteeism of the employee and the excessive use of leave. She didn’t deem this to be characteristic of an excellent employee that was the grade given by the evaluating foreman, so she requested the evaluation score be adjusted. Policy does allow sick leave to go negative, but this is something that should be used as a worst-case scenario, not something that should routinely occur and the evaluation was ultimately signed by Mrs. Kennedy with a comment stating improvement is needed,” Atkins said.
Atkins addressed several other allegations, one regarding an employee that had received a three-day suspension.
“It was brought to attention of management that employees were taking up money for that authority. Management felt it was under mining management.” According to Atkins, during a meeting with Griffith and management, “Griffith was not instructed on how to spend his money, and no reprimand was issued or planned,” Atkins said.
Another allegation Atkins went over regarded “accusations against Monica White’s qualifications.”
“Prior coming to LUB, Mrs. White worked for 20 years and served as a manager for 10 of those years, she directly supervised employees and was responsible for monthly coaching sessions, annual performance appraisals, providing training and participating in the hiring and termination processes. Additionally, prior to being named Human Resource Generalist, she was lead customer service representative supervising employees directly and interacting with members of the public,” Atkins said. He went over the requirements of the HR position at LUB and said that “Mrs. White is more than qualified to hold the position of HR Generalist and to suggest that Mrs. White is poorly qualified and incapable of performing her duties is slanderous and irresponsible,” Atkins said. This concluded his report.
Willoughby made a comment to the board and to the employees. He apologized, because he had promised to interview employees and conduct the investigation. Willoughby was only able to meet with seven employees before going into the hospital for three weeks.
He read an anonymous letter he had received from “the working body at LaFollette Utilities” asking him to continue his interviews, that it was the “only way their voices would be heard.”
Part of the letter said that employees feared issues would be swept under the rug or not investigated by the new general manager. “There is so much going on behind closed doors that needs to be brought to light. Please interview us as our voice is limited without you.”
Willoughby said he was going to “go ahead and try to keep his promise the best he could and get the interview process started again for the next two months he was on the board.”
Willoughby said he had talked to the interim GM and that he had no problem with Willoughby continuing with interviews. Willoughby said he still had health issues but was going to try to keep his promise.
He said what LUB had been missing was communication.
“Our employees need to feel like they can talk to their supervisors, like they can come to our board meetings and talk to us, they don’t need to be afraid they are going to get fired … We need a spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood back in this utility, and I want to hear what you have to say,” Willoughby said.
“All these people sitting around this table want to hear from you, the utility is here to serve the people,” said board member Laura Byrge, adding that it was an “open door.”
Byrge also said one of the duties of the new GM would be to review all of LUB’s policies and procedures in place to make sure that they work best for the employees as well.
“The employees need to be able to reach out and talk to us before they grow into explosive issues. We work for the rate payers; we work for the citizens of LaFollette, we are here to serve you. There is no question that has been asked or any information that we have that we want to hide … We do still have to run a business and we have to do that effectively and efficiently because all of that does cost and that is the taxpayers money as well … we hope to find the solutions that need to be done to make LUB more effective and efficient in the future,” Byrge said. (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED-04/28/2026-6AM)