Former Park Police chief reinstated

Former U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers will return to her position after a nearly eight-year legal battle, according to a new Merit Systems Protection Board decision.

MSPB on Tuesday ruled the Interior Department, which oversees the National Park Service and the Park Police, did not have enough evidence to dismiss Chambers after she publicly expressed concern about staffing and budget shortages. The board ordered her reinstated within 20 days of the ruling.

Chambers was placed on administrative leave in December 2003 after telling The Washington Post that her 620-member force required as many as 800 additional officers to meet increased demands, faced a $12 million budget shortfall, and needed up to $8 million more than the administration had requested for fiscal 2005.

After the article appeared, Park Service Deputy Director Don Murphy put Chambers under a gag order and charged her with improper budget communications, making public remarks regarding security on federal property, improper disclosure of budget deliberations, improper lobbying, failure to carry out a supervisor's instructions, and failure to follow the chain of command. Chambers was removed from her position in July 2004 and appealed the case to MSPB.

"The chief of police is expected to be supportive of their bosses but also to be honest and candid," Chambers said in an interview on Wednesday with Government Executive. "It still amazes me, the overreaction to the interviews that I was directed to take part in."

The board in 2004 dropped two of the charges, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit dismissed a third in 2008 based on the Whistleblower Protection Act. Chambers' statements about public security were protected under the act, the court found.

In its decision Tuesday, MSPB wrote it did not have a "firm and definitive conviction" that Interior would have dismissed Chambers absent her whistleblowing. Agency officials had "significant motive to retaliate" against Chambers and did not take similar actions against nonwhistleblowing employees, the board said.

MSPB ordered Interior to provide Chambers retroactive back pay and benefits within 60 days. She also is entitled to reimbursement for legal fees and other damages.

Salvatore Lauro, who has served as Park Police chief since Jan. 2009, will have to step down upon Chambers' return. Chambers said Interior will have to determine how to move Lauro to a new role, but added she would like to see him stay on the team if he chooses not to retire.

Chambers said lessons were learned on both sides, but noted she looks forward to getting back on the job. She'll spend the first months catching up on what has changed, she added.

"It tested my faith," she said. "Especially those first months of confusion and bewilderment and the very people I looked up to. I admired my bosses. I felt particularly betrayed by them … real disillusionment set in."

Interior can appeal the case to MSPB. Park Service spokesman David Barna said the agency is reviewing the decision and has no further comment on the case.

"I am very pleased by the long-sought victory accorded to former U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers by the Merit Systems Protection Board," said National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley. "It is a victory for the whistleblower rights of all federal employees, and will have a positive impact on them when they feel the need to speak out in the public interest."