MIAMI, March 8 (UPI) -- Allowing a Florida judge's wife to work 1 hour a day and still claim annual benefits worth $10,000 raises concerns and should have been avoided, officials say.
Miami-Dade courts employee Joelle Haspil, wife of Circuit Judge Joseph Farina, wanted to leave her job in 2010 for a higher-paying position at the federal courthouse but needed 15 more months to complete 30 years to receive her full retirement pension.
In an arrangement approved by court administrators in consultation with the court's top lawyer and Farina's successor, Chief Judge Joel Brown, Haspil was kept on the books as a full-time employee, working 1 hour each morning before heading to her new job, The Miami Herald reported Thursday.
A recently released inspector general's report concluded Haspil never should have been classified as a full-time employee and the "arrangement raises perceptual concerns and should have been avoided."
Brown said Wednesday he relied on the opinion of administrators in approving the arrangement but insisted the "same consideration would have been given to any other veteran employee under policies in place at the time."
Trial court administrator Sandra Lonergan said she was not "completely comfortable" with Haspil's request to stay on the books as she was married to a judge but decided to go along with it anyway, the newspaper reported.
General counsel Linda Kearson approved the arrangement citing four previous examples of employees with similar arrangements.
The inspector general's report countered, saying one of the exemplified employees had only been working part time; two others had asked for reduced hours to facilitate the completion of their doctoral internships, and the fourth was detached to a state child welfare project with "direct benefit" to the courts.
"There was no such benefit with Ms. Haspil's employment as an interpreter with the federal court," the report said.
