PAYBACK TIME FOR FIRED ACS WORKER

CLEARED: Ralph Vanacore won back his Administration for Children's Services job and $200,000 in pay.


February 11, 2007 -- A CITY caseworker who missed work for six years while bat tling disciplinary charges has been vindicated in a searing decision that awarded him his job back - and more than $200,000 in retroactive pay.

It's a city-government tale without parallel - a labor-management tug of war that began in 1999 and ended only last December after a panel found that the Administration for Children's Services conducted a concerted campaign of retaliation against a 17-year employee.

In the end, the extended litigation to fire a $41,000-per-year employee cost the city hundreds of thousand of dollars in staff salary and paperwork.

"It's surreal," said the worker, Ralph Vanacore. "Not one thing they said about me was true."

Vanacore's woes began when he was charged with being discourteous and inconsiderate to a supervisor and with trying to intimidate the supervisor by following him to an off-site location.

Vanacore insists he was simply speaking out as a union delegate against a Giuliani-administration plan to reorganize the child-welfare agency.

A hearing officer found Vanacore guilty and recommended a seven-day suspension, later reduced to four days.

Vanacore was suspended. He appealed.

In the meantime, he stopped going to work. Officials of Local 371, his union, insist he was instructed to "sit home."

But his paychecks kept coming from April 15, 1999, to Nov. 29, 1999.

Suffering from a back injury, Vanacore used accumulated sick and vacation time to remain out until March 23, 2001.

While hospitalized, Vanacore said ACS tried to cut off his worker's-compensation benefits.

By the time he was ready to return to work, he faced new charges that included sleeping on duty, using inappropriate language and failing to perform his duties.

New appeals followed.

But on Oct. 26, 2001, Vanacore was fired.

A seemingly endless series of hearings followed.

On June 7, 2004, ACS finally agreed to return Vanacore to the payroll. But it didn't follow through.

Instead, ACS filed new charges claiming Vanacore had been abusive to a supervisor over a three-week period in 2001.

ACS substantiated those charges and fired Vanacore a second time.

But a Manhattan Supreme Court justice intervened in February 2005 and ordered him reinstated.

Less than a week later, an ACS hearing officer found Vanacore guilty of the earlier allegations and suggested he be fired - for the third time.

A second arbitration hearing was held in May 2005 that once again vindicated Vanacore.

Vanacore returned to work on Sept. 15, 2005, while the battle continued.

The Post counted a total of 35 hearings and arbitration proceedings during the six-year saga documented by the Board of Collective Bargaining.

The board ripped into ACS for acting in bad faith and for engaging in a vendetta.

"We find that ACS relied on dubious evidence and stale charges to rid itself of this employee," the board declared.

ACS said it would rely on the decision to end the matter.

Vanacore, meanwhile, is working with his old colleagues while his lawyer prepares a federal lawsuit seeking damages.