2 Pasadena Officials Disciplined : Personnel: City Manager Philip Hawkey demotes one and suspends another after charges they cheated before a job interview.

A top city administrator was demoted and an employee he supervised was suspended without pay by City Manager Philip Hawkey after an investigation into allegations that the two cheated on an interview for a city job that the employee had been seeking.

Gordon Anderson, 39, an eight-year city employee and acting head of the Employment Development and Community Services Department, last week was demoted to a position as project manager in the Department of Housing and Development. The demotion brought his salary from $78,300 a year to $60,719.

Thomas Haywood, 35, acting administrator of the city’s GAIN program for four years, was suspended for an undisclosed period of time. Haywood, who is gay, alleged that the incident is an example of discrimination against gays at City Hall.

City officials said they have received no complaints of such discrimination.

The demotion of Anderson and suspension of Haywood followed an investigation by the city attorney into allegations that on Oct. 26, Anderson gave Haywood copies of questions for an oral interview three days later. The investigation was launched after an employee informed the Personnel Department about the incident. The Personnel Department sought an investigation by the city attorney.

Haywood was one of eight finalists for the permanent post of GAIN administrator. GAIN, or Greater Avenue for Independence, is a state-funded program that provides education and vocational training for welfare recipients.

“Managers and employees will be held accountable if they compromise the fairness and integrity of the city’s merit system, regardless of their motives,” Hawkey said in a statement. The city attorney’s office and city manager have declined to comment on details of the investigation.

Anderson called the demotion unduly harsh for an “innocent indiscretion.” He said he had planned to talk to Haywood on Friday, Oct. 26, about the job interview the following Monday. But since he was away from the office near the end of the work day, he called from his car phone and told Haywood to get a copy of the interview questions from his desk.

“It was an off-the-cuff thing with no real thought given to it,” Anderson said. He added that the questions were not crucial to the interview but were general queries about length of employment and background.

Moments later, when another employee called Anderson to report seeing Haywood take the questions, Anderson said he had second thoughts and immediately told Haywood to replace the questions.

Haywood said he was mystified by the calls and simply followed Anderson’s orders. “At all times, I did what my boss told me to do,” Haywood said.

As acting administrator with the GAIN program from its beginning, Haywood said he is intimately familiar with the program and would not have needed to see interview questions ahead of time.

He said his appointment as the permanent GAIN administrator, at an annual salary of $56,730, may have been blocked for the past four years because he is gay. Haywood said other employees have harassed him, and last month he found condoms on his desk and in his mailbox after he participated in the city’s AIDS awareness week.

Before the suspension, he said, he took those incidents as a joke. “I kind of thought that I was accepted there, but I guess I wasn’t,” he said.

Haywood said other gay city employees have been harassed. But Ramon Curiel, the city’s Human Resources Director, said no employment discrimination or harassment complaints have been filed by gays the past two years.

The disciplinary action places the GAIN administrator post on hold, Curiel said.

Anderson is black, but neither he nor the black community leaders who protested when his predecessor, Deweylene Henry, was placed on administrative leave last year have alleged his demotion is racially motivated.

Henry, who has sued the city for discrimination, is on medical leave and plans to return to work in February. She said she was demoted because of clashes with former Deputy City Manager Edward Aghjayan. City officials have refused to comment.