Once again, accuracy is sacrificed for a news bite! The city of San Francisco does not have its own Department Of Motor Vehicles. The agency involved here is the California State Department Of Motor Vehicles , and the incident occurred at it San Francisco Field Office.
As as recently retired supervisor from another California state agency, I am not surprised by either the rapidity or general level of the settlement offered to Yust in this case. The DMV employee was definitely acting OUTSIDE any and all official duties when he took her information for his private purposes. The article does not mention that even though the employee resigned voluntarily, that he could have been subject to felony criminal prosecution and jail time in addition to the civil damages for misuse of state computer equipment and information assets. He is permanently barred from holding state employment ever again. The attorney who represented him in his share of the settlement was not paid for with state funds so his 15K settlement is in addition to another 8-10K of fees.
The State Of California has adequate legal basis and disciplinary tools to deal with both the prevention and correction of employee conduct in regard to ANY member of the public. The problem at the minute though, is that with the budget issues that have almost brought the state to its economic knees, have left the budgets of the individual agencies without funding for the training needed to insure fair and un-biased customer service in the ways it is needed. The only employees guaranteed to get this training at the minute are those who are mandated by law to get it. (As a supervisor, I was one of those employees). The DMV and several other agencies have a high turnover of the lower employment levels where DMV clerks are, and they do not have budgeted time and resources for the level of training needed. Without the training, it is harder and longer for individual supervisors and the department HRC units to weed out the bad employees.
