Allegations over Columbus mayor violating labor law voided after $200,000 settlement

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Columbus paid a former employee of the mayor nearly $200,000 after she alleged she was not paid overtime and asked illegally to do work on the mayor's 2023 reelection campaign.

Denise Bauer, former executive assistant to Mayor Andrew Ginther, was granted $195,000 last month from the city's general fund. An unfiled legal complaint alleged she was not paid for frequent overtime, asked to help with Ginther's campaign as part of her work for the city, and was forced to resign. City government maintains it did nothing wrong.

Accompanying the settlement was an agreement signed by Bauer releasing the city from further liability. This includes her previous allegations against Ginther and the city's failure to keep proper records, her wrongful termination, and that she was asked to work on his campaign illegally.

City Council approved the payment on Sept. 16, which was equivalent to more than two years of working at her hourly wage at the time of her resignation: $40.87. Bauer's lawyer said her resignation in August 2023 was forced after she raised concerns about not receiving her overtime pay, which legal documents claim should have been either time and a half or double her typical wage, depending on how much she had already worked in that pay period.

"They treated her like an overtime-exempt city official," Bauer's lawyer, Edward Hastie, said in an email to the city obtained by NBC4. "Mayor Ginther himself was aware Ms. Bauer was entitled to overtime pay."

Hastie pointed to records of Bauer's badge in and out times as proof she worked overtime consistently, which NBC4 has accessed to verify. Although most badge uses were between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., some days did show discrepancies. For instance, on July 28, 2023, Bauer's ID log shows her in the office over a nearly 11-hour period. Her paystubs for that week say she worked no overtime.

U.S. law sets standards for record keeping and overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act. As laid out in the threatened lawsuit, failure to properly document overtime or pay overtime are both violations of federal law.

Ohio law prohibits state employees like Bauer from working on campaigns. Hastie said Bauer was regularly fielding communications and requests from Ginther's campaign staff to help with his reelection. However, Ginther told NBC4 on Friday that this was within her job description because she dealt with scheduling.

"In times there are office-holders who are also campaigning, the scheduler is the one person who has to keep everything straight," Ginther said. "You can't really have campaign folks maintaining a public schedule, and you can't have the public employees maintaining a campaign schedule. We’ve followed all the rules and regulations doing things the right way, and we feel comfortable about where we are."

Bauer's dismissed allegations also included that she was barred from returning to work after her resignation on Aug. 3, 2023, according to court documents and city files. However, she was paid through the end of the year.

In an email to city representatives, Hastie alleged the deal to be paid through the rest of the year occurred before Bauer put in her resignation, writing that "the city brazenly offered her an illegal enticement" with the nearly five months of paid leave. Hastie also said Bauer felt she was threatened with termination.

According to a series of emails obtained by NBC4, the sum to be paid was negotiated several times before Hastie said the city must accept the $195,000, or they will file the lawsuit. City representatives agreed to pay, and emails asserted a settlement would be more advisable than going to trial.

"It is also not lost on me that this was done mere months before Mayor Ginther’s contested re-election campaign," Hastie wrote to the city. "They elected to try to illegally buy my client's silence. There is no defense or legal rationale for their actions."

Ginther was elected to his third term as mayor in November 2023, with nearly two-thirds of the vote.

Bauer joined multiple others who have criticized the mayor's actions in the past year. In December 2023, attorneys defending a Greyhound bus terminal accused Ginther of improper talks with a judge outside court chambers. Separately, the public has taken issue with Ginther and City Attorney Zach Klein's handling of a July ransomware attack on the city.