Just days before former Baltimore Comptroller Jacqueline F. McLean is to be sentenced for theft and misconduct, a former employee is suing her and other city officials, alleging that she fired him because he is a white, Jewish, male.
Former assistant comptroller Erwin A. Burtnick, 51, says in the suit that McLean eliminated his position in "a purge and wholesale dismissal of male Jewish and Caucasian" executives in her office. The suit, which also names the mayor and City Council as defendants, accuses McLean of age discrimination as well.
Mr. Burtnick is seeking a total of $10 million in damages from McLean and the city.
But McLean yesterday stood by her decision to abolish Mr. Burtnick's position, saying it was part of a major reorganization recommended by her transition team.
"The first recommendation was there was no need to have a comptroller, a deputy comptroller and an assistant comptroller," McLean said through her attorney, M. Cristina Gutierrez. "Mr. Burtnick was not a CPA and had not had a good track record in the department of audits, so it made fiscal and personnel sense to abolish the position."
McLean pleaded guilty in September to stealing more than $25,000 in public funds by hiring a fictitious employee and research group. She was also found guilty of misconduct for voting on a city lease for a family-owned building. She will be sentenced Thursday.
City Solicitor Neal M. Janey declined to comment on the suit yesterday because he had not received a copy of it. However, he noted that the city has successfully fought past suits for eliminating positions because of budget cutbacks.
McLean eliminated Mr. Burtnick's position in July 1992, about seven months after she took office.
That summer, McLean significantly increased the number of jobs over which she had sole hiring and firing power. She also abolished several key administrative posts, including Mr. Burtnick's.
When McLean became the first black woman to rise to the comptroller's office in 1991, she found all the blacks and women in the office had low-ranking jobs, even though they were certified public accountants, Ms. Gutierrez said.
Mr. Burtnick filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in January 1993, making charges of racial, sexual, religious and age discrimination.
Earlier this month, Mr. Burtnick said, the EEOC notified him that it did not support his allegation of discrimination. The commission said he could file a civil suit.
Mr. Burtnick, who retired after his position was eliminated, said he remembers McLean's actions.
"When she came back from her swearing-in ceremony, she came back to my office and she told me it wasn't my office anymore," he said yesterday.
"I was thrown out of the office and placed behind some file cabinets near her clerical staff."