Panel Rules Nepotism Rules Were Broken : Civil service: The district attorney is found to have violated county guidelines by allowing a division head to keep his new wife on his staff.

The Ventura County Civil Service Commission, after reviewing summaries of complaints from about 20 workers, concluded Wednesday that Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury has violated county nepotism rules by allowing a division head to keep his new wife on staff.

The commission, on a 4-0 vote, also recommended that the County Board of Supervisors transfer ombudsman Margaret Escobar Trom out of the Child Support Division run by her husband of six months, C. Stanley Trom.

At the request of Bradbury’s lawyer, commission Chairman Robert Embry abstained from voting. Embry said that he had not prejudged the issue but that his previous comments to reporters that blatant nepotism exists in the district attorney’s office might have created that impression.

The commission’s report is expected to be on the Board of Supervisors’ agenda next week.

The board delayed action this week on Bradbury’s request that the supervisors find that the Trom marriage has created no nepotism problem--or waive a county rule that says “no person shall be employed in a position directly or indirectly supervised by a member of his immediate family.”

Most county supervisors did not want to act without having the Civil Service recommendations in hand, Supervisor Madge L. Schaefer said.

Bradbury, who has characterized the Civil Service Commission as a tool of the employee union that filed the Trom complaint, would not comment Wednesday. Previously, he has denied that his office has violated county work rules.

Trom, who said Tuesday that he had never accorded his wife special treatment at work, also declined comment on the commission’s ruling.

“Mike has indicated that we will make our response to the Board of Supervisors,” Trom said. “I’m comfortable with that.”

The Civil Service Commission’s actions are an endorsement of the findings of staff adviser Ray Charles, who conducted an investigation after a Feb. 6 complaint by the Public Employees Assn. of Ventura County.

In a summary report, Charles said that, since 1985, numerous employees have complained to their superiors about the conduct of Escobar Trom and asked to be transferred from the small work teams she has headed.

Most of the complaints “went unanswered or unresolved,” Charles said. “In time, Ms. Escobar was perceived as one who enjoyed ‘most favored status’ because of her relationship with the director.”

Trom has said that he and his wife lived together for several years before they were married. There is no county rule against a supervisor living with a subordinate as long as they are not married.

In an interview, Charles said he based his conclusions on conversations with about 20 family-support officers, about half of the 40 workers in that section of the Child Support Division.

“They all shared the same litany of complaints,” he said. Most complaints involved “just the day-to-day relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Trom. They felt, for example, that Mrs. Trom did not carry a workload comparable” to those of other supervising officers.

They were especially critical of her for taking time off to attend conferences with Trom before and after they were married, Charles said.

“She spent a lot of time away from the office and in her absence others had to assume her workload,” he said. “No other employee gets the opportunity to go to that many conferences.”

Trom said earlier this week that his wife has taken unpaid leave to join him at quarterly conferences. But, he said, he has never turned down a request for unpaid leave for any of his employees. His wife also has attended conferences on her own time while her co-workers were paid to attend to avoid allegations of favoritism, Trom has said.

Charles’ finding that there is a history of complaints about Escobar Trom seemed to surprise her husband. Trom said he was unaware of a single complaint by workers about his relationship with his wife before they were married. Charles said the complaints were filed with the chief family service officer, who reports directly to Trom.

Commissioners Carolyn Goldsborough and Christine Sims endorsed Charles’ findings, they said, partly because of declarations made by several employees. Those declarations, which remain confidential, “speak much more clearly than the report itself” to problems of favoritism in the Child Support Division, Sims said.

Commissioners rejected the argument of Assistant County Counsel Noel Klebaum, who represented Bradbury at the hearing.

Klebaum argued that there was no basis for the commission to find a violation of county nepotism rules, partly because Bradbury changed the department’s organizational structure last November, shortly after the Troms were married.

Since then, Escobar Trom has reported directly to Assistant Dist. Atty. C. Toy White, who evaluates her performance, instead of to her former superior in the division.

Escobar Trom still performs the same duties and works in the same office just down the hall from her husband, but she no longer works for her husband either directly or indirectly, Klebaum said.

Klebaum told the commission that it could not conclude that work rules have been violated unless it first concludes that “the district attorney’s reorganization is nothing but a sham.”

The county counsel described Trom and his wife as two loyal and valuable county employees, each with a tenure of about 20 years, who have been “unfairly subjected to public criticism and embarrassment.”

“There is no evidence that Mr. Trom has ever showed favoritism to Mrs. Trom,” he said.