Jun. 16—The former budget director at the state Children, Youth and Families Department is suing the agency, claiming she got COVID-19 after being required to come into the office in December 2020 and was forced out after she complained.
Melanie Sharpe started work as budget director in 2016. According to her lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the state First Judicial District Court, CYFD had mostly prohibited employees from coming to the office after the coronavirus pandemic started in 2020.
However, on Dec. 11, 2020, the complaint says, her boss, Phillipe Rodriguez, ordered her and at least six other employees to come to the office in Santa Fe to label items employees wanted moved from their first-floor offices to the new fourth-floor offices CYFD was moving to within the building. This, the complaint says, "violated department policy by requiring a group of employees to come into the ... building in person for a non-emergency reason at a time when department policy required employees to work from home."
Rodriguez had Sharpe come back to the office Dec. 14 to take 100 to 300 boxes of old office supplies to the dump or to be donated, which she did with her boyfriend. Shortly thereafter, she tested positive for COVID-19.
The complaint says Sharpe emailed several people, including Rodriguez, to let them know she had tested positive "out of a concern that the other employees who Mr. Rodriguez, forced to appear in person at the ... building offices ... may also have come into contact with, or contracted COVID-19." It also says she told Rodriguez in at least one phone call she worried her "COVID-19 infection was due to the fact that Mr. Rodriguez required her to spend nearly two days in the ... building offices, with a group of other employees, without sufficient personal protective equipment."
In February 2021, Sharpe's complaint says, human resources told her she was "under investigation for 'misconduct,' " which she attributes to retaliation for catching COVID-19 at work. In April, Rodriguez issued her a "letter of concern" and she was put on a performance improvement plan. In late June, the complaint says, she was let go "on account of Defendant's pretextual disciplinary action and retaliation against Ms. Sharpe for contracting COVID-19 at work."
CYFD is denying the allegations.
"This lawsuit contains false and unfounded claims and takes valuable time away from the incredibly important work this agency does every day to protect the most vulnerable children of our state," a department spokesman said in an email.