An investigation into a litany of employee complaints over hostile work conditions and poor treatment of veterans led to the quiet ouster of the 19-year head of Grand Traverse County’s Veterans Affairs Office (VA).

Director of Veterans Services Chuck Lerchen signed a resignation agreement with county administrators and the VA Administrative Committee effective May 25. Lerchen – who had served in his position since 1998 and was a county employee since 1989 – was placed on paid administrative leave May 4 prior to his resignation while administrators investigated a range of complaints against him, including use of profanity at work, poor treatment of employees, misreporting of vacation time, and inadequate veterans service.

County administrators did not publicize Lerchen’s departure nor share the circumstances surrounding his resignation. But a copy of the investigation report obtained by The Ticker through a Freedom of Information Act request shows administrators substantiated employee complaints of “poor treatment of veterans, lack of effective leadership and poor treatment of VA staff, dishonesty and/or gross incompetency in record-keeping/reporting time off/reporting to the VA Committee, (and) retaliation” by Lerchen.

The report alleges that Lerchen instituted a policy requiring all walk-in visitors at the VA office to wait at least 10 minutes before being helped – even if employees were available to assist them. Lerchen “stated the VA office has a problem with veterans demanding service on a chronic basis” and “that the VA is not McDonalds or Burger King…(clients) can’t just walk in and expect to be served,” wrote County Human Resources Director Bill Hendry. Hendry also reported that Lerchen prohibited veterans from dropping off paperwork “unless the VA office was expecting the document, resulting in inconvenience and processing delays.” Lerchen personally saw “very few veterans each day,” often leaving staff members to cover his cases, according to the investigation.

Lerchen also reportedly used foul language at the office, including using homophobic terms to address employees and calling the VA a “s*** show” in a letter to a staffer. He reportedly described employees in another county department as “heifers,” was observed playing cell phone video games and smoking e-cigarettes in his office, and required mandatory staff overtime with less than 48 hours’ notice in retaliation for an employee seeking union assistance. Hendry also found discrepancies between Lerchen’s stated vacation days on his work calendar and his payroll records, and estimated Lendry overstated VA wait times by more than two weeks.

When Lerchen was under investigation, he was warned by Hendry not to interfere with the internal investigation or retaliate against employees for their complaints. Hendry says the director instead yelled at employees for their disloyalty, canceled one employee’s training trip, and limited an employee’s access to the VA database. “You have exhibited a lack of effective leadership of your department, and your treatment of staff is unacceptable,” Hendry wrote in a May 9 memo to Lerchen. Three of the four county veterans service officers listed at the department filed complaints against Lerchen; some staff members threatened to quit if Lerchen continued at the department.

Hendry tells The Ticker he initially recommended Lerchen be fired at the conclusion of his investigation but that state law mandates that hiring and firing decisions be made by the VA Administrative Committee, not county administrators.

The VA Administrative Committee was not supportive of terminating Lerchen, according to Chair Jim Wegener. “I don’t think there was anything charged against him that we couldn’t have rectified as a board,” Wegener says. “For an employee who has 27 years with the county with nothing else in his file, other than good things, you’d think we'd have an opportunity to sit down with him and go through the complaints and work things out. We were put in a terrible position.”

VA Administrative Committee members instead agreed to allow county administrators to negotiate a resignation agreement with Lerchen, which they later approved. Under the terms, Lerchen will collect 17 weeks’ salary – estimated at nearly $23,000 – and 17 weeks of health insurance benefits, plus nearly $8,500 in accrued vacation and personal time. The agreement additionally allows Lerchen to file for unemployment benefits. In exchange, Lerchen waived all rights to pursue any legal action against the county.

In response to the report and his resignation, Lerchen tells The Ticker the generous severance package proves that the employee complaints and county allegations against him were “trumped up” and that the county “just wanted (him) gone.” He strenuously denies the allegations against him, dismissing the majority of them as “unequivocally untrue.” Those complaints he does acknowledge as true – such as directing homophobic language toward employees – he says were either misinterpreted or overblown. “There was no ill intent of any kind,” he says. “I have a 100 percent spotless record for 27-some years. The first time I even had any indication anything was going on was when the HR director…said we have all these complaints against you. I don’t even know how to answer it, because it’s so absurd.”

Lerchen believes County Administrator Tom Menzel and County Commissioner Bob Johnson – who was first approached by VA employees with concerns and turned the complaints over to administrators – are punishing him for refusing to support Project Cherry Tree, a county-championed community veterans program. “We didn’t endorse it and didn’t feel it was being handled correctly,” he says. “This is an assault on me personally. To purposely and maliciously try to destroy a man’s career after a spotless record is just unfathomable.”

Lerchen adds he's never had any complaints filed against him from veterans, and that he received “zero complaints from customers as to the walk-in policy" when it was "properly implemented." He says “every veteran has been treated fantastically” during his tenure at Grand Traverse County. "There's no way I could have performed successfully as I had in the VA as long as I had if any of (those complaints were) going on," he says.

Menzel and Johnson both denied Lerchen’s departure was due to personal reasons or Project Cherry Tree. “The county has had no affiliation with Project Cherry Tree for months,” Menzel says. “We did not initiate an investigation (into Lerchen)…we were called in. The results were clear. If nothing had been found, everything would be the same now.” Johnson also calls Lerchen’s accusation “totally false” and “ridiculous,” saying he only raised concerns about the director to administrators after he was approached by employees.

With Lerchen gone, county administrators and VA Administration Committee members are now turning their attention to hiring a new director. County Deputy Administrator Jennifer DeHaan is acting as interim director until a replacement is hired, according to Menzel. Hendry says the county posted a job listing for a new director on June 2 and closed it on July 7. The post attracted 37 applicants – a pool administrators will assist committee members with reviewing and narrowing down for interviews in the coming weeks.

“There are probably individuals with similar backgrounds (as Lerchen’s) working in offices throughout the state who have applied,” says Wegener.