The equipment-room manager at the heart of the scandal that gutted San Diego State's athletic department won back his job yesterday afternoon.

Midway through a state appeals hearing, the California State University system agreed to drop its case against Steve Bartel and rescind his Sept. 12 notice of termination. Bartel will return to work Feb. 16 and receive five months' back pay plus interest.

"Mr. Bartel and his family are pleased to see that San Diego State recognized (its) serious errors in judgment," said a statement from Bartel's attorney, Paul Kondrick. "It was unfortunate that Mr. Bartel has had to bear the humiliation of the last 18 months. Steve is now looking forward to returning to his job."

SDSU Director of Human Resources Sue Blair said Bartel, who made about $50,000 per year, would return to the athletic department at the same employment classification but not in the equipment room – even though there is an opening there. "We will be working on an appropriate assignment for him over the next week," Blair said.

Bartel and his immediate supervisor, Senior Associate Athletic Director Vance Redfern, were initially suspended with pay in June 2002, when the CSU system launched an internal audit amid "allegations of theft and misuse of sports equipment" within the SDSU athletic department. The two returned to work a month later while the audit continued.

Bartel was suspended again in May 2003 after a 37-page audit report outlined mismanagement within the equipment room and an overall lack of institutional control throughout the athletic department. He was officially fired Sept. 12 and, as a unionized state employee, filed an appeal with the State Personnel Board. He has still a civil suit for defamation pending against SDSU and several other defendants.

The audit and its swirl of controversy led to the dismissal or resignation of Athletic Director Rick Bay, Redfern and his other top lieutenant, Senior Associate Athletic Director Jana Doggett. In addition, several other athletic department staffers tainted by the scandal left the university.

But management employees in the CSU system are considered at-will positions and thus do not have the same kinds of protections as lower-level, unionized employees such as Bartel. He was entitled to a hearing before an administrative law judge who issues a recommendation to the State Personnel Board, which determines whether a person's dismissal is valid.

Bartel, 50, never got that far. On the second day of the hearing, held in a windowless room in the basement of a state government building downtown, the CSU decided to reinstate Bartel, essentially because its case against him was unraveling.

"Given these circumstances and what we could see would be the ruling of the (judge), we decided to reinstate Mr. Bartel," SDSU's Blair said.

The appeals process limits the scope of the hearing to issues specifically contained in the notice of dismissal. And because SDSU did not cite potential criminal or fraudulent activity, there was a three-year statute of limitations on any allegations. The university also chose not to include several of the findings in the auditor's report that implicated Bartel.

The big blow for CSU came when Redfern testified yesterday morning. Redfern, who now lives in New Mexico and was flown in by Bartel's attorney for the hearing, never established that he gave Bartel proper guidance in how to manage the department's equipment inventory and never sanctioned him for using it for trade-outs.

"Given the nature of the supervisory relationship between Vance and Steve," Blair said, "it was clear (Bartel's) performance was acceptable (to Redfern)."

That made it increasingly difficult for SDSU to hold Bartel accountable for any mismanagement or misuse of equipment – something the presiding judge, Melvin Segal, apparently brought to the attention of CSU attorneys. After a short conference with Segal outside the hearing room, CSU attorneys announced SDSU would reinstate Bartel.

Segal then said: "I thank (CSU) counsel and the university for recognizing certain problems that I pointed out."

Redfern declined comment after his testimony.

Bay, who still lives in San Diego, said Bartel's reinstatement "casts further doubt" on the 11-month investigation conducted by CSU senior auditor Mike Redmond. Bay had disagreed with parts of the audit, and SDSU President Stephen Weber said he asked for Bay's resignation last May because "I could not ask Rick to lead our response to an audit he does not agree with."

The audit claimed athletic shoes and apparel were exchanged for access to sporting events, concerts, airline upgrades and golf clubs; alcoholic beverages were stored in equipment-room locations accessible to students; the athletic department used special-admit privileges to help students improperly gain admission to SDSU.

"I was fired because I believed the audit to be irresponsible and inaccurate," Bay said last night. "Clearly there were holes in it, otherwise these allegations (against Bartel) would have held up . . . I would hope this situation gives pause to a lot of the other allegations that were in the final audit report."