KNIGHTDALE - Vickie Powers claims that she was the victim of harassment, age, and gender discrimination while she was a Public Safety Officer for the town of Knightdale, according to her attorney.

The 55-year-old ex-officer on Jan. 24 amended her complaint against Knightdale with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to include “multiple categories” of harassment, Andy Gay said last week.

Gay. Powers’ attorney, declined to elaborate. And EEOC filings are not public record, so Powers’ specific allegations remain unknown.

The amended filing is the latest twist in the ongoing drama involving the Powers and Knightdale Town Hall.

Powers first filed the EEOC charge after retiring at the end of 2011. It claimed that she was the victim of age discrimination when she was “reclassified” from shift supervisor to community outreach officer in December 2010. Her annual salary dipped from $71,750 to $62,603.

She now collects an annual payment of $15,431 from the town until she turns 62 – a total of $108,017 over the next seven years, according to the Knightdale finance department. (Retirement payments to public safety officers from the town are mandated by state law and are based on what an officer earned during their final year of service.)

Had Powers not been demoted, she could have earned about $17,860 a year from the town during retirement – or $123,760 by the time she turned 62, a difference of about $2,400 per year.

In response to the initial filing, Knightdale released a statement that attributes Powers’ demotion to 23 failed firearms tests. The town said she was unfit to carry a weapon.

Knightdale town officials declined to comment on Powers’ latest claim.

“We got out what we considered to be the relevant information,” Knightdale mayor Russell Killen said last week.

Knightdale does not have a history of harassment. Officials said then that no employees have filed grievances with the town in the past five years.

But whispers of mistreatment echoed through Town Hall last summer.

Nearly one-third of Knightdale town employees in a May 2011 survey said they had seen or experienced harassment in the workplace.

Twenty of the town’s 61 staff members responded “Yes” to the question: “Have you ever experienced or observed harassment (age, gender, race, sexual, sexual orientation) at the Town of Knightdale?”

Respondents answered anonymously.

Human Resource experts called the survey responses “a red flag.”

But town officials dismissed the surveys. Killen, for instance, said the wording of the question was “too vague.”

Lawsuit likely

Gay says Powers will exercise her right to go to court unless Knightdale comes to agreeable terms with her through EEOC mediation.

“There’s right and there’s wrong. No findings from this administrative process will change the fact that Vickie Powers was treated wrong,” Gay said.