Ana Ceballos
While the state has paid $11 million to settle sexual harassment workplace disputes over 30 years, records released Thursday show it also settled nearly a dozen cases that resulted in a zero-dollar payout.
Florida Politics requested documents from the state Department of Financial Services, which list 11 state workers — both men and women — alleging they were sexually harassed, sexually assaulted and battered, or exposed to a hostile work environment in a state prison.
The cases range from a woman alleging sexual harassment, assault and battery while working at the Department of Transportation to a man and a woman reporting sexual harassment and retaliation while at the Collateral Regional Counsel for the Middle Region.
The cases were settled, but both parties were unable to reach an agreement on the payout amount.
“It does not mean there was no wrongdoing, but that there was no payment agreement reached,” said Jon Moore, press secretary for Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis.
The cases occurred between January 1998 and April 2008. But the hundreds of sexual harassment workplace claims ingrained in the state government’s history date as early as 1987 and as recent as 2015.
Of all these sexual harassment complaints, 81 percent targeted an executive agency. The biggest proportion going to the Department of Corrections, followed by the Department of Children & Families.
