A federal supervisor who reprimanded an employee for whistleblowing was appropriately suspended for 10 days, the Merit Systems Protection Board ruled last week.
The decision struck down an appeal the supervisor filed after the board imposed the 10-day suspension last year.
The supervisor was the acting head of the materials and waste management branch at a military installation in Oklahoma when she reprimanded an employee for whistleblowing.
The employee, an environmental health technician, told his boss that he thought a plan to pump water out of a construction area into a ditch that ran into a creek would contaminate the creek. The pumping continued anyway, so the employee contacted the Coast Guard National Response Center and the Oklahoma Department of Pollution Control.
The supervisor then issued the employee a reprimand in writing warning that he must "no longer give notice to any regulator whether state or federal unless explicitly authorized by myself" or other supervisors.
The MSPB ruled that the reprimand violated the Whistleblower Protection Act after the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which handles whistleblower complaints, filed a complaint against the supervisor.
Under the act, supervisors cannot formally warn a subordinate not to disclose information that may point to a violation of law or a threat to public health.
"Placing restrictions on a whistleblower regarding the timing or means of making disclosures is in direct conflict with the purpose of the whistleblower protection legislation, which is to protect disclosures made to any person," Special Counsel Elaine Kaplan said.
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