Following the superior court’s reversal of the State Personnel Board’s decision to increase a sanction for state employee Calvin Willis’s proven misconduct, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources “DNR” appeals by permission, arguing that the superior court erred in holding that the Board failed to adequately explain its decision to increase the sanction recommended by the ALJ. We agree and reverse. Construed in favor of the Board’s decision, the evidence shows that DNR employee Willis served as a state park superintendent and therefore had law enforcement authority.1 As a favor to a friend, Willis embroiled his public position in a private dispute between the friend and an occupant of a private residence. He called the residence from his office, cited his law enforcement authority for impact, and attempted to persuade the occupant to allow the friend and Willis entrance to the property. When the occupant complained to Willis’s superior, an investigation ensued, in which Willis was interviewed.
Dissatisfied with Willis’s interview responses which it considered inaccurate and concerned about the facts of the incident, DNR notified Willis that it intended to terminate him a for misusing his law enforcement authority in violation of DNR regulations and state ethics rules and b for insubordination in lying to the investigators. When the dismissal ensued two weeks later, Willis sought and received a hearing before an ALJ, who found that Willis’s phone call had clearly violated DNR’s law enforcement procedures as well as a state code of ethics. This finding is not contested in the present appeal. The ALJ concluded, however, that Willis had not lied to investigators and that therefore the charge of insubordination was unproven. The ALJ recommended that the sanction for Willis’s misconduct be a 30-day suspension without pay, not a dismissal.
