ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ

ST. LOUIS — After coming in a distant second in this month’s primary election, Mayor Tishaura O. Jones may well be out of a job come April 15.

She could still fill one of the most important jobs in the city, though. But her administration is navigating what the mayor calls “byzantine� civil service rules while facing a new legal challenge that has stymied her ability to appoint an interim personnel director.

The personnel department has been without a leader since last Thursday, when Jones took the historic step of ousting former director Sonya Jenkins-Gray following weeks of public hearings detailing a July 3 trip Jenkins-Gray took to the state capital in a city car during work hours. With a never-before-used firing process that took more than half a year finally concluded, the mayor now wants to choose an interim director, using a rule change the administration pushed through the Civil Service Commission in 2022.

But Jenkins-Gray left a speed bump in the way: in November, she approved former personnel director Rick Frank’s September 2023 request for reemployment rights to the job he retired from in 2021.

During an emergency hearing Wednesday, St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Christopher McGraugh dealt a blow to the Jones administration, blocking the Civil Service Commission from a rule change that could have kept Frank from returning to his old job.

Frank has said his reemployment rights at least entitle him to a job interview. On Tuesday, the mayor’s office acknowledged that and said they planned to interview Frank for the position, even as the Civil Service Commission was planning to vote Thursday on a rule change allowing it to cancel reemployment rights for the director’s position.

Hours before the city reached out to Frank to schedule an interview, Frank and the union representing St. Louis firefighters had filed a lawsuit seeking to block the Civil Service Commission from making that change. The lawsuit called the proposed rule changes “unlawful political interference by Mayor Jones and her staff� that would eliminate Frank from consideration and give the mayor “a degree of control over the Department of Personnel that the Charter never intended for the mayor to exercise.�

The union previously sued over the 2022 rule change allowing the mayor to pick an interim personnel director. That litigation is still pending.

An emergency hearing scheduled 1:30 p.m. Wednesday was canceled after the city asked for a change of judge. But the lawyer for Frank and the union, Emily Perez, was able to get her motion to block the civil service rule change in front of McGraugh later that afternoon.

Perez argued that allowing the Civil Service Commission to change the reemployment rules would “immediately eviscerate� Frank’s reemployment rights.

But Inez Ross of the City Counselor’s office maintained that the Civil Service Commission had broad leeway to change its rules, and regardless, the city was still planning to interview Frank.

“He’s not going to be taken off� the reemployment list, Ross told the judge.

But McGraugh pressed the city on why the rule change was being proposed now, shortly before the mayoral election and just as the director’s position opened up.

Ross responded that the city didn’t know Frank was going to take a stance that the director’s job was “a right.�

“It’s not his to have,� she said.

But McGraugh said the timing of the proposed rule change was a “concern,� and if it wasn’t solely about Frank, the commission could have changed the rule months ago.

“The only action that has been taken is right before you make a provisional hire,� McGraugh said. “The timing is suspicious to me.�

He barred the commission from changing its rule for 15 days.

The ruling could leave the administration’s hands tied if it wants someone other than Frank to lead the powerful personnel department, a critical job at any time but with added urgency if the mayor wants cooperation making hires in what could be the final days of her administration.

Perez told the judge that the city can only make “provisional� appointments to positions if there is not a certified list of job applicants. Frank is the only person on the reemployment list for director.

After the hearing, Frank, who sat next to Jenkins-Gray, embraced the fired director. He said he was “gratified at the wisdom of the court and the performance of my counsel.� He planned to attend a job interview the mayor’s office requested Thursday afternoon, and he looked forward to leading the city’s civil service system to “keep it free of political contamination.�

City Counselor Sheena Hamilton, who came to the emergency hearing with two of her office’s lawyers, declined to comment after McGraugh’s ruling.

The city has been trying to change the reemployment rule since November, when Jenkins-Gray approved Frank’s request, made more than a year prior, for reemployment rights. Frank’s lawsuit references testimony during Jenkins-Gray’s termination hearings from deputy director of personnel Sylvia Donaldson, who said the mayor’s office tried last year to get her to reassign Frank’s reemployment rights to a job at St. Louis Lambert International Airport. She refused.

Frank said he wants his old job back because he is “concerned about the status of the city’s civil service system� under Mayor Jones. In an affidavit with the lawsuit, he said the mayor’s office is pushing the civil service rule change to sideline him and install a “crony� to run the department.

Jones and Frank butted heads over the 2021 process to select candidates for new police chief, which Frank insisted the Personnel Department would handle, a departure from former Mayor Lyda Krewson’s use of a search firm for police chief. Then Frank retired. Jones restarted the police chief search.

The political and legal maneuvering underscores the importance of the personnel director, one of the most powerful positions in city government, with broad authority over hiring, promotions and discipline across the 5,000-worker bureaucracy.

Frank said the mayor’s deputy chief of staff, Sara Baker, emailed him Tuesday afternoon proposing a job interview Wednesday or Thursday morning, before the Civil Service Commission meeting. Frank said he told them he was busy Wednesday but he could tentatively come to City Hall Thursday afternoon, after the commission meeting. He said the mayor’s office told him a virtual meeting would be fine.

“This just looks like a sham interview,� Frank said Wednesday morning.

Frank, who served 18 years as the city’s personnel director, said the mayor’s office appears to believe that if they interview him and don’t offer him the position, “I come off the (reemployment) list. It doesn’t work that way.�

During , Jones’ opponent in the mayor’s race, Alderwoman Cara Spencer, called the personnel director position “vital to how the city operates.� Spencer, who has strong backing from the firefighters union, also criticized the proposed rule changes.

“If the mayor wanted to change the civil service rules, why on earth are we waiting 19 days before an election to get rule changes in?� Spencer said.

If Jones is able to make temporary pick, the person could hold the job for months, even if the mayor loses reelection. The three-member Civil Service Commission, currently made up of two Jones appointees and one vacancy, must conduct a search and test applicants before presenting a list of three candidates from which the mayor chooses a permanent director.

The civil service director is the only position in the mayor’s cabinet that is not filled when a new mayor takes office. As a result, past directors have served long tenures across multiple administrations. Jones was given the rare chance to hire a permanent personnel director after Frank retired. She chose Jenkins-Gray in 2022.

Since Jenkins-Gray’s ouster, a department critical to filling job vacancies in an understaffed city workforce has been without a leader. Many of the city’s hiring functions require approval from the personnel director, including certifying lists of eligible candidates after competitive testing. Department heads use those lists of candidates to fill open positions.

Jones spokesman Conner Kerrigan said Tuesday the city is still able to hire for open positions off of the existing eligible lists. But new lists will need to wait for a new director.

In the meantime, he said the department’s deputy directors are “keeping the ship moving forward.�

Updated at 5:38 p.m. Wednesday with the judge blocking a plan by the city to change its reemployment rules.Ìý