The Bainbridge Island police lieutenant who resigned in October will get a departure package worth more than $93,000, according to records released by the city.

Lt. Denise Giuntoli, an officer with Bainbridge for more than 23 years, stepped down Nov. 1.

Giuntoli was the third of the department’s four lieutenants to retire this year. She was the only officer to receive a severance package, and her departure package includes six months’ of salary of $46,680.

City records indicate she will be paid nearly $100,000 after her last day on the job.

Documents released by the city after a public records request by the Review also show Giuntoli was investigated for dereliction of duty — and ultimately cleared — in the months before her departure.

Giuntoli will be paid a total departure package of $93,299, which includes $36,241 in vacation pay, floating holiday pay, comp time and sick pay, plus $10,378 in Flex and Cobra reimbursements.

Though her departure was officially noted as a retirement earlier this month, City Manager Doug Schulze later said Giuntoli’s split with the city was a “negotiated separation.”

Departure planned

Giuntoli had been talking about retiring with higher-ups since early October. She submitted a resignation letter to the city Oct. 20 and announced her plan to retire. She signed a four-page separation agreement with the city the following day.

“Such a decision naturally causes one to look back on her career with some nostalgia,” Giuntoli said in her resignation letter.

“I am proud to have served as a member of the department for nearly 24 years and will recount my time with the department fondly. A majority of my career with the department included supervisory positions of rank, which enabled me to grow and experience new challenges, such as attending the FBI National Academy.”

“While my longevity necessarily means that I have served under various Chiefs of Police, I am thankful for the opportunity to serve as a lieutenant while under your leadership,” she said in her letter to the chief.

“As I look forward to new and different opportunities, I will hold the community of Bainbridge Island and the Bainbridge Island Police Department close to my heart.

I wish you and my colleagues continued success in the service and protection of this community. Thank you for your continued support as I prepare to leave this lengthy and rewarding career experience in favor of beginning a new and exciting chapter of my life,” she wrote.

Her resignation was accepted by Police Chief Matthew Hamner on Oct. 22.

Latest to leave

Giuntoli is the third lieutenant to step down this year.

Lieutenant Phil Hawkins, who had been with the department 23 years, retired in March.

Lieutenant Christopher Jensen, a Bainbridge officer for more than 24 years, retired in May.

The three departures leave Lieutenant Bob Day as the department’s remaining lieutenant.

The department’s supervisors have been under increased scrutiny in recent years.

Hawkins and Giuntoli were reprimanded two years ago after Hawkins was accused of sleeping while on the job, and Giuntoli was disciplined for not reporting the incident.

Trouble in the ranks

Last year, two consultant reports that analyzed problems within the police department were critical of the lieutenants, who serve as the front-line supervisors in the department.

One report said the department had been in a “regular state of turmoil” in recent years that led to incidents of insubordination within the ranks of officers.

The study said the lieutenants helped create a climate of a lack of discipline within the department, and added that line officers also had a poor view of their supervisors.

A different study said the current structure of the city’s police union was problematic because of the lieutenants’ role as supervisors but also as union representatives who defended officers faced with disciplinary actions.

Earlier this year, the city abandoned its effort to break up the police union to remove the lieutenants from the bargaining unit that mainly represents the rank-and-file officers.

The city is continuing, however, with its effort to remove the rank of lieutenant from the department’s command structure and institute the rank of sergeant instead.

Giuntoli’s past with the Bainbridge Island department saw other instances when she was at the center of controversy during the agency’s recent troubled years.

Two years ago, Giuntoli was a leader in the police union when it took a vote of “no confidence” vote in former police chief Jon Fehlman after guild claims of alleged mismanagement and law-breaking, and Giuntoli was also one of two females in the department who leveled sex harassment charges against former Police Commander Sue Shultz. Both Fehlman and Shultz left the Bainbridge department soon after internal investigations were finished that found scant evidence of the claims.

Internal investigation

Documents released by the city after a public records request by the Review show Giuntoli had been the focus of an internal investigation by the police department in the months before she left the force.

Police Chief Matthew Hamner asked Bremerton Police Chief Steven Strachen if his department could do an investigation of Giuntoli for alleged dereliction of duty.

Giuntoli was cleared after the investigation, which started in mid-June after Hamner became concerned that Giuntoli had been put in charge of putting the Lexipol police policy system in place after the department got the computer software in March 2013, but little was done for Lexipol’s launch.

Lexipol was a high profile and high priority change for Bainbridge, and the implementation of the system was highlighted as a much needed fix for the Bainbridge department in the two consultant reports that found problems in the lieutenant ranks, including instances of insubordination and lieutenants “blowing off” assignments.

Hamner, in an interview with investigators, said Giuntoli had been pulled from all other work for four months — and told to stay off the street or not handle 911 calls — to get the Lexipol program changed over to work for Bainbridge. But when she announced it was done in fall 2013, employees started complaining that the new policy manual wasn’t complete and hadn’t been customized for Bainbridge.

Another officer stepped in and did the job from scratch in a few months, Hamner noted, while Giuntoli had had several years to get the job done. A review of Giuntoli’s work on Lexipol discovered only a few weeks’ worth of small edits had been made to the manual, such as changing titles.

When Giuntoli was interviewed by investigators, she blamed the last two chiefs who led the department, and said she wasn’t given enough direction on the project. She also said she was too busy with other work.

In a second interview, she said the department had been going through a great deal of turmoil.

“Lt. Giuntoli said she felt paralyzed. Previous chiefs had not allowed her to make decisions and she was not able to change gears overnight when Chief Hamner arrived,” the investigative report said.

The investigators said Giuntoli’s poor performance on the project was due to a lack of confidence, and suggested better mentoring was needed.

The report also said Bainbridge should better define the roles of lieutenants, and expand decision-making into their ranks.