By Robin Ford Wallace

The Dade County Commission had so little on the agenda for its regular March meeting on Thursday that the commissioners melded their work session with their formal business meeting, foregoing the usual break in between.

But short as the agenda was, the meeting itself was a marathoner, and Dade stomachs growled uneasy harmony to the siren call of a plate of doughnuts in the back of the room as a rare but lengthy executive session prolonged the unhappy separation of attendees from their suppers until nearly 9 p.m.

Executive sessions – that is, those behind closed doors, protected from the pricked ears of public and press – are legal only for discussing certain narrowly defined subjects, and before calling the session, Executive Chairman Ted Rumley announced that the commission would be tackling more or less all of them, including: prospective sale or lease of property; personnel issues; and records exempt from open records law.

The latter two items were particularly ear-pricking to public and press because the last order of business before the executive session was called had been a dramatic demand from a taxpayer, during the citizens’ participation portion of the meeting, for the suspension of a county employee whose handling of county funds appeared impeached by public records the taxpayer had examined.

Citizen Joy York had stood up to challenge the county commission, and especially the county attorney, on their retention of a payroll clerk who records indicated, and an audit recommendation had pointed out, paid herself fluctuating and often generous amounts from pay period to pay period, as detailed in an earlier Sentinel. 

Ms. York said Chairman Rumley had told her the impugned clerk retained her job on the attorney’s advice lest she sue the county. “I don’t understand how someone can steal money from the county and go to court and sue us for firing her for stealing,” said Ms. York.

The attorney dismissed her demands with a generalized statement: “We looked at all the information and we acted as we felt appropriate based on the information we had. If there’s additional information, we’ll happy to take a look at that.”

But Ms. York persisted: “Did you do any further research after the transgressions were brought to your attention?”

Rogers said he wouldn’t discuss with Ms. York personnel issues or any past or future investigation by the county. “We’ll continue to monitor it,” he said.

Ms. York was not to be quashed so easily, though, and pressed on to the matter of 1099s she said the payroll clerk should have, but had not, issued herself for additional county money she’d received for cleaning the courthouse as a contract laborer. “That has IRS implications for this county,” she said.

A 1099 is a federal government form reporting income – usually taxable income – paid to a non-employee, as a matter of accounting and as a way of ensuring the proper taxes will be paid on it.

Ms. York said that only two 1099s had been issued for the courthouse cleaning, a 2007 one that had been later corrected downward, and one for a separate year for only $800. 

Actually, she said, from 2007 onward, the payroll clerk had paid herself and another employee anywhere from $3- to $600 a month to clean the courthouse.

Rumley said that matter was one the county was looking into, and one that wasn’t over.

“Until it is over, as a taxpayer whose money she’s handling, and misappropriating, clearly, I think she should be suspended,” said Ms. York. She said the employee should not be “continuing to play with the checkbook.”

“I assure you, we’ll be reporting back to the people,” said Rumley.

After the meeting, Rumley elucidated that payroll clerk Jennifer Hodnick and accounting clerk Melissa Smith had in fact contracted to clean the old county courthouse beginning in 2006 or 2007, following the departure of a woman who had done it as a regular part-time gig for many years. 

He said the practice of the commission’s administrative staff doing the cleaning had started during the tenure of his predecessor as county executive, Ben Brandon, and had continued during his own term until the new county courthouse was opened in autumn 2010. The larger floor space of the new facility had necessitated the hiring of a full-timer cleaner, he said.

Rumley reiterated that the county had retained its payroll clerk on the advice of counsel but: “It was not a one-person decision.” 

And he rejected the notion that he was keeping the compromised clerk on because she “knew too much” about his administration. “Everything I’ve got is open,” he said. In any case, he said, it was impossible to please everybody. “I’m just thankful to be here,” said Rumley.

But back to the March 7 meeting: Rogers, Rumley and the other commissioners returned from their closed-door session to a room still filled with pricked ears, but by then a little thin in the doughnut department, to announce they had made no decisions as to personnel or as to either of the other secret topics.