St. Paul’s deputy mayor issued the city’s fire chief a written reprimand this week, saying he retaliated last year against an employee who previously filed a complaint against him.

The decision was reached in December, but Tim Butler appealed it, according to St. Paul Human Resources. On Tuesday, two days after another employee filed a separate complaint against Butler, Deputy Mayor Kristin Beckmann decided to impose discipline in the 2016 inquiry.

Beckmann wrote to Butler in the December letter — made public Thursday, when the discipline was imposed — that she was putting Butler “on notice that if any other infraction of the workplace conduct policy takes place, there will be more severe discipline.”

“I cannot have a leader in this city operate without full knowledge and compliance with our core policies,” she wrote.

In total, Butler has been the subject of four other complaints by employees since late 2015 — two were investigated and closed last year without discipline and two remain under investigation.

Ben Petok, a mayor’s office spokesman, said Thursday that the timing of the decision was unrelated to the new complaint.

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Butler has been St. Paul’s fire chief for a decade and has about two years left in his current term.

He previously said he focuses his efforts “on improving firefighter safety, improving services to St. Paul residents and visitors, building a more inclusive workforce, and treating firefighters and their families with dignity and honor.”

The fire chief was unavailable for comment Thursday, according to a department spokesman.

On Monday, Butler declined to talk about the complaints. Asked then about the number that have been filed against him, Butler said, “I think that in 10 years as fire chief, you make some decisions that are unpopular.”

LETTER: BUTLER QUESTIONED EMPLOYEE’S PAST COMPLAINT

Last year, a district fire chief filed a complaint against Butler. An investigation was completed in October 2016 and Butler was not disciplined, so the city did not release information about that allegation.

Butler later “repeatedly questioned … why (the employee) filed a complaint” against him, Beckmann wrote. “Further the complainant believes that other quasi-disciplinary actions regarding (the employee’s) work performance have also been carried out in retaliation for (his) role in the previous investigation.”

The employee filed another complaint against Butler, alleging retaliation. The city redacted the worker’s name and other information from the letter.

Beckmann wrote that Butler had put the employee “in an extremely difficult position of defending (his) involvement in a(n) … investigation. … (Q)uestioning the complainant equates to intimidation by a superior officer. The intimidation could cause a chilling effect on the individual bringing forward other complaints, which is why the investigator considered this to be retaliatory.”

Beckmann said she believed Butler did not bring up the case with the employee “out of malice or in an attempt to put (him) on notice that you … were not happy about it. However, while it doesn’t appear that it was intentional, your questioning … did have a retaliatory impact.”

The most recent complaint against Butler was filed Sunday by the president of the rank-and-file firefighters’ union, who alleged the chief used a derogatory term in an email to a firefighter last week. The email’s subject line was “BLUE FALCON,” which is a military euphemism that stands for “buddy (expletive).”

Butler, a retired member of the U.S. Coast Guard and Reserves, said the slang refers to a person who blames someone else, while trying to maintain their own advantage.

He said Monday that he did not call the firefighter a derogatory term and noted that he merely intended the subject line to refer to the firefighter’s actions, but he said the phrase was “unprofessional and uncalled for” and he apologized.