MADISON'S HARD LINE ON POT

City's Employee Policy Mandates That Repeat Users Be Fired

Tom Neale admits he sometimes smoke a little pot. He says he's never
been high on the job -- hauling away large trash items like mattresses
and sofas for the city of Madison Streets Division -- and sees
"absolutely no way" his off-the-job use could affect his
performance.

But it has affected his job, to where Neale has been sidelined for at
least two weeks without pay for his second positive result since the
city began drug testing in 1995. If he gets caught again, it will cost
him his job.

Neale, 56, a city employee since 1978 and two-time mayoral contender,
is upset that Mayor Dave Cieslewicz has failed to follow through on a
campaign promise to rethink the city's severe penalties for behavior
Neale believes, as the songwriter said, "ain't nobody's business but
my own."

"Mr. Cieslewicz has some flexibility to reduce the penalties for
recreational drug use and chooses not to do so," says Neale. "I
consider it grossly hypocritical that he would make these sort of
statements during the campaign, then do absolutely nothing once he
becomes the city's chief executive."

Cieslewicz vaguely recalls his campaign pledge, and stresses that he's
no fan of drug testing. In response to Neale's concern, he's asking
Madison's Human Resources Department and the City Attorney's Office to
"look at the penalties and give me some recommendations about what we
can do."

Federal law requires the city to randomly test all employees who hold
commercial drivers licenses -- currently 428 people, not including
Madison Metro drivers, says Roger Goodwin, the city's acting Human
Resources manager. About half of this group are tested for drugs and a
quarter for alcohol each year. But since names are randomly selected,
"some people have never been tested and some people get picked every
time." The city also does pre-employment and post-accident testing, or
if there's "reasonable suspicion" that an employee is impaired.

Since 1995, the city has performed 3,202 drug tests on non-Metro
workers; of these, 158 came back positive, two thirds of the time for
marijuana. (Ironically, only two of these tests were for "reasonable
suspicion," meaning most drug users are apparently not giving
themselves away.)

Under federal law, anyone who tests positive must see a substance
abuse professional, and cannot return to work until he or she tests
clean. Because marijuana stays in the system longer than other drugs,
some city employees have missed months of work; Goodwin says the
record is 111 days. Employees who smoke crack or shoot heroin,
meanwhile, can be back on the job within a week. (They're also less
likely to be caught, assuming their drug use is occasional.)

But the feds do not prescribe what punishments to impose; that is up
to the city. Under policy established by former Mayor Paul Soglin, on
first offense employees can use vacation and comp time to cover for
the days they miss until they test clean. Then, over the next year,
they are tested regularly, usually six times, to make sure they got
the message. (After his first positive, in 1996, Neale says he was
tested 18 times, because his expressed concern about "some little drug
Nazi shoveling propaganda down people's throats" led to his being
passed up for drug counseling.)

Employees who test positive again during this year-long period are
fired; those who don't return to the pool, subject to random testing.
If they later log a second positive, as did Neale last month, they are
suspended without pay, generally for at least ten days and until they
test clean. Even if they make it through the next year of intensive
testing, any subsequent positive will lead to termination. About two
dozen city workers have been fired due to drug testing during the last
decade.

Goodwin says the city's penalties are harsher than some and more
lenient than others: "Some private employers fire on the first
offense." He warns that if the city's policy is too lax and an
impaired employee causes an accident, "our liability would go through
the roof."

Cieslewicz says Goodwin has made the same point with him. But unless
the liability issues are too great, his inclination is "to back off of
the penalties." High time.