A former employee took the Marshall County Communications Commission appealed an unemployment decision and came out on top.

Stacy Roads filed an appeal on the decision that she was ineligible to collect insurance benefits after she was fired from her dispatch position.

The commission – MCCC – is located inside the Marshalltown Police Department – MPD – and serves as the dispatch for all of Marshall County including the MPD, police departments in Melbourne, Rhodes and State Center, the Marshall County Sheriff, 12 fire departments and 12 medical units.

Dawn Boucher, administrative law judge for the Iowa Workforce Development Unemployment Insurance Appeals Bureau, found that Roads was not fired for any reason that would make her ineligible for benefits. The ruling was given on Oct. 25.

The appeals court record states, “Misconduct serious enough to warrant discharge is not necessarily serious enough to warrant a denial of job insurance benefits.”

Marshall County Sheriff Steve Hoffman, who is also the chair of the MCCC, said no more appeals would be filed regarding the matter.

Roads worked as lead operator from February 1996 to September.

When former communications manager, Teresa Lang, became ill, Roads took on some of her responsibilities. Lang retired from the management position in March and the MCCC instructed Roads to continue as lead operator and assume Lang’s duties until another manager could be hired. It was ordered Roads would receive an additional $1,200 per month for the assumption of extra duties.

In July, the commission hired Rhonda Braudis as the communication manager.

Roads did apply for the permanent management position and found out in June that she would not receive an interview.

Hoffman said how Roads felt about that is subjective but it appeared that she was upset over the decision.

After Braudis was hired, Roads told her she was deleting some of Lang’s personal files. Braudis requested a history of the personal drive which contained employee files and complaints against MPD Chief Mike Tupper. Roads believed the files were personal to Lang.

Hoffman said he did not know why Roads would consider the files to be “personal” and not “personnel” and believes they were all deleted.

The court record states that Roads deleting the files was not a breach of her duties or employment obligations.

Roads also made overtime claims in June – the same month she found out she was not being considered for the permanent position.

Roads worked outside of her normal hours of 8 am. to 4 p.m. and communicated with employees about covering shifts. The overtime was documented in two-hour increments as Road was previously instructed by Lang to do so. The court found that requesting overtime for hours worked outside of regular hours is not misconduct.

Hoffman said one of the two-hour increments was nothing more than a text to him asking if an email account had been set up for the incoming manager.

“Those types of actions do not meet the Department of Labor de minimum rule threshold and would not be considered compensable time,” Hoffman said. “It was clear those actions were already compensated by the commission.”

Upon Roads’ termination on Sept. 9, she was given documentation stating the reasons behind the decision to let her go.

The reasons included the in-appropriation of funds, abuse of position and failure to supervise employees.

Editor’s note: This article has been edited since it originally published Nov. 16 to reflect this was an unemployment appeal, not an appeals court decision.