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Somebody in the human resources department wasn’t doing their job correctly because New York City attempted to fire a man for missing 18 months of work, yet he died last year. How does this happen?

 

Clearly, no one at the Human Resources Administration bothered to do an online search about Medicaid Eligibility Specialist, Geoffrey Toliver, a father who died from cancer last year.

Toliver wasn’t even getting paid during the time that he’s been dead, so it’s not like he was tricking the system. Still, the HR Administration filed charges against him for going AWOL, in order to officially fire him from his $38,000 a year job. A judge approved, and moved that Toliver should indeed be fired, but again, he’s no longer alive.

“How do you fire a man who is already dead? He deserves better. The agency itself should have known,” said Ted Willbright, Toliver’s friend who viewed him as a brother. “Some people he worked with were very supportive, so how did HRA the organization not know? He’s dead, and they’re saying he abandoned his job. He didn’t abandon his job, his job abandoned him. He was a good man. Truly, truly a good man.”

The city had marked Toliver absent as of November 12, 2013, around a year before his death. The family is confused by this whole ordeal. “It is my understanding that . . . his employer was fully aware that he was not able to come back to work,” said Toliver’s brother, Anthony.“It is my understanding that my brother’s family spoke directly to his supervisor during his long hospitalization and informed them of his death.”

They say hindsight is 20/20, and now that city officials have been made aware of Toliver’s “unfortunate death” they’ve decided not to give the whole firing thing a rest.

Photo: obituary