Job Performance

Workers who tested positive on pre-employment drug tests were substantially more likely to be absent or fired in the months that followed, according to a two-year landmark study of the relationship between drug use and job performance. The U.S. Postal Service says the finding justifies its plan to exclude applicants who test positive for drugs from the world's fourth-largest workforce beginning in December. But the study, while showing a powerful connection between cocaine use and job performance, showed only a slight relationship for marijuana use. And, when the results are compared with other surveys, drugs appear less related to job performance than alcohol abuse, smoking or even the age and sex of workers.

The borough manager said he was walking into work yesterday morning when the town's attorney and chief of police turned him around and sent him back through the front door. Charles Jacien, whose future as the municipality's manager appears even more dubious now than in previous days, said he was trying to return to his job at 9 a.m. in Borough Hall when he was stopped in the lobby. The borough put Jacien on administrative leave with pay Monday, after a tiff with borough officials over the firing of his secretary, who is also his girlfriend.

Deptford Township's director of community development, Robert Marmion, who was fired in March, has been given a two-month reprieve. The "cooling-off period," as Marmion described it during an interview earlier this week, was agreed to at a March 20 meeting among Marmion, his attorney, the township's solicitor and several members of the Township Council. Between now and June 1, Marmion's attorney Bruce Hasbrouck and township solicitor Eugene McCaffrey Jr. will try to determine whether proper civil service procedures were followed when Marmion was fired last month, Marmion said.

Apparently sickened by the prospect of losing her job, Borough Manager Victoria Keller has not shown up for work since May 31, the day after Borough Council called an executive meeting to discuss her job performance. Keller has been calling in sick since then, said her attorney Richard Patton, because a doctor had determined that the stress in her current work environment is making her physically ill. Officials have made no decision about Keller's fate. But she will be a topic for public discussion at Tuesday night's council meeting, during which, Borough Council President Richard Hirschfield said, "some action" will be taken.

Citing a litany of problems, the Chester Upland Board of Control fired the school district's personnel director, Marvin K. Hackett, yesterday. Hackett, a former Delaware State University personnel director, had spent less than a year on the job at a salary of $60,000 a year. At a meeting yesterday, the three-member control board, with member C.R. Pennoni absent, found him responsible for unsatisfactory performance, neglect of duty, insubordination, violation of the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and incompetence.

Gov. Ridge may be a golden boy around Erie, but in these parts he's seen as a bumbler, according to the latest Keystone Poll. As his job performance on a key local issue plummeted, his favor with the voters sank dramatically from earlier polls. Not surprisingly, his downfall poll relates to his handling of the Meyer Werft deal that would have pumped millions of dollars into the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. Only 13 percent of the city residents polled thought Ridge had done a good or excellent job negotiating that deal.

The Magnolia Council last night unanimously accepted the resignation of borough tax collector Maria Capuzzi. Capuzzi said in a letter received by the council Tuesday that she wanted her resignation retroactive to March 19. She did not give a reason in her letter for quitting, but she had been under fire from the council. Contacted at her home after last night's meeting, Capuzzi declined to comment on her resignation. Last month, Capuzzi said she had not been to work since the middle of February and had failed to attend three council meetings called especially to discuss her job performance and alleged record-keeping problems in the tax collection office because of "nervous tension, stress and pressure" related to her job. At that time, Mayor Catherine M. Quigley said Capuzzi had continued to use a record-keeping method that the council twice last year asked her to change.

Grace Whitney, second-in-command at the Philadelphia Housing Authority and the focus of tenant and employee anger, is under review by her supervisors and may be dropped from her full-time job, according to PHA officials. Whitney's job performance will be reviewed this week by Elton Jolly, special master in charge of PHA, and John Kromer, director of the city's housing office, who yesterday became acting executive director of PHA. Valena Dixon, a PHA spokeswoman, said that depending on the review's outcome, Whitney could be given a consultant's contract instead of her full- time job directing day-to-day operations.

RE THE totally ridiculous Rant of the Week from John Stuhr about pregnant women in TV news: I simply can't believe his warped idea of pregnancy, as if it's something to hide from the public. As many of us already know, unless the woman has medical difficulties or other health-related problems, most woman can and do work most of their pregnancy (and some choose to work until the end). Pregnancy is a miracle of God that we are privileged to witness. My dad used to describe people like John in a way that always made me laugh and still does - ignoramus!

A NEW POLL HOLDS good news and bad news for Mayor Nutter and Philadelphia in his second term. The Pew Charitable Trusts poll released yesterday showed that the approval rating for Nutter's job performance is on the rise, even as residents express growing concerns about crime, education and the economy. Nutter's approval rating increased to 60 percent, up from 52 percent in a Pew poll last year. That was helped by a 10-percentage-point increase in his approval rating among African-Americans, with whom his numbers have previously been less than stellar.

A NEW POLL HOLDS good news and bad news for Mayor Nutter and Philadelphia in his second term. The Pew Charitable Trusts poll released yesterday showed that the approval rating for Nutter's job performance is on the rise, even as residents express growing concerns about crime, education and the economy. Nutter's approval rating increased to 60 percent, up from 52 percent in a Pew poll last year. That was helped by a 10-percentage-point increase in his approval rating among African-Americans, with whom his numbers have previously been less than stellar.

Mayor Nutter's job approval rating is up to 60 percent, the highest level in the past three years, but most city residents continue to describe crime, the state of the public schools and lack of job opportunities as major problems that have improved little over the past five years. That's the conclusion of a new public opinion poll released Tuesday by The Pew Charitable Trusts, based on 1,600 telephone interviews with Philadelphia adults, from Jan. 4 through Jan. 19. Just one out of three people, 37 percent, said they felt completely safe in their homes at night, and less than one out of six, 16 percent, felt completely safe walking in their neighborhoods, the study found.

WASHINGTON - If President Obama wins reelection in November, Friday's jobs report may be remembered as the turning point when he shifted from slight underdog to favorite. "Where are the jobs?" has been the question at the heart of the Republican case against Obama. Mitt Romney's campaign turns on the assertion that his experience in the private sector taught him how to create jobs. Obama, by contrast, has "failed" in that endeavor, he repeatedly says. January's growth - a net of 243,000 jobs created, the most in nine months and almost double what most economists had forecast - undermines that argument, both Democratic and Republican strategists agreed.

WITH ONE of the best-known names in Pennsylvania politics, Bob Casey Jr. easily won a seat in the U.S. Senate six years ago during a referendum election on an unpopular Republican president. But a poll being released today shows that more than half the state's registered voters don't know enough about Casey to offer an opinion or are undecided about the Democrat's performance as he seeks a second term. Will President Obama's re-election effort, sure to make many stops in Pennsylvania this year, help or hurt Casey's effort?

A transgender employee hired to oversee urine tests administered to men has filed a discrimination lawsuit against a Camden drug treatment center that fired him after it confronted him about his gender last summer. El'Jai Devoureau, 39, said Urban Treatment Associates questioned him about his gender a day after he started working in the position, which had been open only to male candidates. "Is El'Jai a male? The employer says no, and El'Jai says he is," said Michael Silverman of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund in New York, which filed the lawsuit Friday.

Three top officials will interview teachers, review records, and scrutinize whether the principal of Clymer Elementary ran afoul of Philadelphia School District policies during his run for political office in Maryland. Deputy superintendent Leroy Nunery, associate superintendent Penny Nixon, and assistant superintendent Patricia Mazzuca will also investigate Kevin W. Parson's alleged routine lateness and absences, a district spokesman said Wednesday. The district launched the investigation after The Inquirer raised questions about Parson's political activities and his attendance.

RE THE totally ridiculous Rant of the Week from John Stuhr about pregnant women in TV news: I simply can't believe his warped idea of pregnancy, as if it's something to hide from the public. As many of us already know, unless the woman has medical difficulties or other health-related problems, most woman can and do work most of their pregnancy (and some choose to work until the end). Pregnancy is a miracle of God that we are privileged to witness. My dad used to describe people like John in a way that always made me laugh and still does - ignoramus!

Under pressure from Senate Republicans, Gov. Rendell yesterday took the extraordinary step of withdrawing the nomination of Kathleen McGinty for secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection. But Rendell said he simultaneously resubmitted the nomination with the hope that given more time, the Senate would confirm McGinty before adjourning for the summer. McGinty, 39, a former top environmental adviser to President Bill Clinton, has served as acting DEP secretary for four months.

Commerce Bank branch manager Kathy Geissel could be described as one of the boat people in the region's banking buy-a-thon, sinking and rising in the turbulent waters of mergers and acquisitions. She was working for Fort Washington-based Prime Bancorp when New Jersey's Summit Bancorp took it over during the summer of 1999. "It was total culture shock, a total difference in atmosphere, not just for customers, but for how they dealt with their employees," she said. So Geissel has a good idea of what Mellon Financial Corp.