Aide’s claim to cost Erie County $155,000
Saying goodbye to Margherita C. Fanti will cost Erie County taxpayers $155,000.
Fanti, the county official who trained employees on the government’s policy against sexual harassment, complained in May that one of her supervisors in the Personnel Department was harassing her with rude comments.
Fanti’s complaints led to the one-week suspension of Joseph Murphy, the principal executive assistant to Personnel Commissioner John W. Greenan. But Fanti later said the penalty was too lax. She filed a federal complaint and said Murphy had left her unable to work.
The county attorney’s office negotiated a settlement with Fanti, a five-year employee making about $60,000 a year. The $155,000 will be split between her and her lawyer. She has dropped her federal complaint and no longer works for Erie County.
County Attorney Cheryl A. Green had said a government can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars paying a workers’ compensation claim from someone Fanti’s age, 38. So she saw $155,000 as a reasonable settlement.
Green had refused to publicly state the amount Fanti will be paid. The $155,000 total was revealed in documents given to the state-appointed control board, which approved the agreement this week as part of its role to review county contracts worth $50,000 or more.
