Chapala Mayor Joaquin Huerta has been threatened with a possible 15-day forced suspension from his duties, without pay, stemming from a labor suit filed against the city by a former city hall official.
On Thursday, March 14, the state congressional commission on municipal governance and development issued a finding to initiate the suspension procedure. However, the measure requires approval on the full floor of Congress to be put into effect.
The matter involves a labor judgment handed down in favor of Ignacio Valdovinos Anaya, who served as head of Catastro, Chapala’s property registry and tax office, during the 2007-2009 administration of Gerardo Degollado.In his original labor claim, Valdovinos demanded payment of 806,213.35 pesos, corresponding to half of his December 2009 salary, plus full end-of-year bonus, vacation pay and settlement for unjust dismissal from his post. With adjustments for lost income since winning the case in February of last year, the sum due now totals more than 1.3 million pesos.
The case is only the tip of an ominous iceberg. The current administration is contending with a monstrous encumbrance surpassing 20 million pesos owed for binding judicial decisions against the city. According to legal department chief Hermenegildo Ortega, the sum is related to more than 90 labor suits and several administrative cases.
A number of top echelon officials who left office at the end of Degollado’s term negotiated deals with the previous administration to collect unpaid December 2009 salaries and annual bonuses.
Unlike regular city employees, political appointees expect to give up their jobs with the end of each mayor’s three-year reign. It is a common practice for these officials to put a signed resignation on file upon accepting the posts, precisely to protect the government against future labor suits. For that reason city hall insiders are saying Valdovino’s claim that he was fired on December 31, 2009 smells of a political rat.
In the long run, Huerta will likely dodge the suspension bullet, if not the headache of legal bills left by his predecessors.
On March 15 the city council approved his two-point proposal to seek fresh financial resources, with a percentage specifically applied towards payment of pending legal judgments, and to put a line in the municipality’s 2014 fiscal budget to cover whatever outstanding liabilities remain.