The city of Graham has fired three employees – a police officer, an engineer in the fire department, and a garbage man, all of whom were fired prior to completing a required probationary period for their respective positions – and suspended two others during the last year.
The information was derived from numerous public records that the city of Graham furnished this week in response to a public records request by The Alamance News, seeking personnel records for all current and former employees who had been subject to disciplinary actions during the 2023-24 fiscal year that ends June 30.
The most recent city employee to be fired was a sanitation collector, Lloyd Handy, 22, of 5752 Fancy Loop Road in Graham, based on a notice of dismissal and supplementary documentation that Graham city manager Megan Garner furnished this week in response to the newspaper’s public records request. Handy had been hired as a sanitation collector, at an annual salary of $37,571.50 on November 6, 2023.
The newspaper sought to examine and inspect “all documents, papers, letters, maps, books, photographs, films, sound recordings, magnetic or other tapes, electronic data-processing records, artifacts, or other documentary material, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received pursuant to law or ordinance in connection with the transaction of public business” pertaining to disciplinary actions involving current and former city employees.
Specifically, Alamance News publisher Tom Boney, Jr. requested the payroll information for all current and former city employees who had been dismissed, demoted, suspended, or fired between July 1, 2023 and June 21, 2024, the date on which the public records request was filed with the city of Graham.
North Carolina law classifies certain types of information in the personnel files of local government employees as public records, including: dates of employment; any increase or decrease in compensation; dates and types of any promotion, demotion, transfer, termination, suspension, and/or dismissal, as well as a copy of the final notice of dismissal outlining the reasons for dismissal.