Looking Out for No. 101?

A veteran hospital police officer has charged that she was improperly denied a promotion at Lincoln Hospital because the person evaluating her had eyes on the same position.

There is no way to be certain that Senior Special Officer Vera Edwards, who ranked 38th on the promotion list for Sergeant, was a victim of the self-interest of Diana Hogan, who ranked 101st on that roster but had been given two provisional promotions - the second one to Lieutenant - that placed her in a supervisory role.

But there is no question that Lincoln and the Health and Hospitals Corporation set up a situation where Ms. Hogan had a conflict of interest and may have abused her power.

Ms. Edwards suspects that her past complaints about alleged harassment at Lincoln figured into her superiors signing off on the demotion. Supporting her belief on that score is the fact that she was also rescheduled from a day tour to a 4 p.m. to midnight shift, which makes it impossible for her to cook dinner for her children and help them with homework.

HHC has responded by saying that its personnel system is different than the one utilized by mayoral agencies, and that Ms. Hogan's past performance had shown her capable of assuming a leadership position regardless of how high she ranked on the promotion list for Sergeant. Lincoln Hospital Police Director Guillermo Magdeleno also noted that Ms. Hogan had more seniority than Ms. Edwards, and had appropriate training and experience to evaluate her.

That misses the point, however. Provisionals are not supposed to hold their positions for longer than nine months under the state Civil Service Law, although it is routine for them to serve well beyond that limit at both HHC and in municipal agencies. Ms. Hogan has been in a supervisory role for more than six years without having scored high enough on an exam to be promoted by now. In cases like this, it should not become a judgment call as to whether she demoted Ms. Edwards for legitimate reasons or because it moved herself one step closer to getting a civil service promotion.

Not helping matters, either, is Lincoln Hospital's longtime reputation as a patronage trough, going back four decades to the days when hiring and promotions were controlled by Ramon Velez, the South Bronx power broker who was favored by the corrupt Bronx Democratic machine, two of whose county chairmen eventually went to prison.

The HHC Inspector General's Office should investigate Ms. Edwards's charges. And the Conflicts of Interest Board should look into the case with an eye toward issuing a ruling that would require that provisional supervisors must recuse themselves from evaluating subordinates who are competing with them for civil service promotions.