A federal appeals court ordered NCUA to reinstate a long-time executive for improper termination in 2000 and ordered the federal agency to pay him as much as $1 million in back pay.
In its ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said Tim McCollum, who worked for NCUA for more than 20 years, the last 10 as top deputy in Southeast Region III, was improperly terminated after he rejected a relocation to the West Coast Region VI office.
Under NCUA rules, McCollum submitted his retirement after rejecting the move. But NCUA did not properly acknowledge McCollum's retirement, the appeals court ruled. The court did not rule on McCollum's charges that his relocation was retribution for him being a whistle blower in the agency's hiring scandal in the late 1990s.
McCollum claimed he was relocated because he contacted the Inspector General's office and implicated then-NCUA Board member Yolanda Wheat and Executive Director Carolyn Jordan in the scandal, in which racial minorities and women were found to have been given illegal preference for NCUA jobs. The court sent that question back to the Merit Systems Protection Board, which adjudicates federal worker claims. An NCUA spokesman would not comment on the case because it had been remanded to the merit board and has not been concluded yet.
