Columbia County Manager schemes to take care of
favored employee
Columbia County, FL (posted
November 02,
2009)
By Stew Lilker
Columbia County's County Manager, Dale Williams, is
flying by the seat of his pants, once again. In another
ploy to part the working families of Columbia County of
their hard earned tax dollars, the County has violated
plain common sense by scheming to pay a county employee
$75.00 an hour as an outside contractor to do the job he
has always done as a regular county employee.
It was obvious that County
Manager Williams was looking to score Mr. Manning
some cash.
For years, Columbia County's IT wizard, Todd Manning,
has been servicing the computers at the Columbia County
IDA/Chamber of Commerce. He had been doing this during
the day, during his normal working hours. There were no
special billing arrangements for this. There were no
charge backs or payments from the IDA to the County for
Mr. Manning's time, even though there should have been.
The county's external auditor and financial consultant,
Richard Powell, apparently never saw any problems with
this arrangement, if indeed, he even knew about it.
This past Friday, October 29th, the county's internal
auditor Judy Lewis told the Observer, " I don't know of
him [Manning] doing work over there when the IDA was at
the Chamber. They were not into our system or anything.
I have no idea what he does."
Sometime before September 28, 2009, CM Williams met
with IDA director, Jim Poole to discuss the Manning
arrangement. It was obvious that CM Williams,
disregarding the economic hard times and the fact that
Mr. Manning had already been working on the IDA
computers for years, was looking to score Mr. Manning
some cash.
Of course, the Columbia County Personnel and Policy
Manual is not really clear on this issue, however it
states: "Employee shall not have held any employment or
contractual relationship with any business entity or
agency which engages in business or contractual
agreement with the County." The rewrite of this
particular section, in which the county is now involved,
is doing an end-run around ethics and just plain common
sense on this issue. It will make glad-handing in
Columbia even easier.
On September 28, 2009 the IDA held a special meeting.
The minutes state the following: "Motion by Suzanne
Norris Second by Marc Vann to hire Todd Manning to set
up computer network and server during the transition at
a rate of $75 per hour not to exceed 15 hours. Motion
carried unanimously."
The IDA did not make a contract with the outside
contractor.
There was no written contract made with Mr. Manning.
There wasn't any requirement for him to show that he
maintained workman's compensation or other liability
insurance. If there were any questions regarding why the
county tax payers were now paying Mr. Manning as an
independent contractor $75.00 an hour for something he
used to do as county employee, it is not reflected in
the IDA minutes.
The IDA has never taped their meetings, nor do they
prepare a verbatim transcript of their meetings. The
minutes are prepared by the Deputy Director of the IDA,
Gina Reynolds.
At the October 29th joint IDA-County Commission
meeting, IDA Director, Jim Poole explained the precursor
to the Manning arrangement and the IDA Board action on
September 28th this way: "Dale [CM Dale Williams] and I
had discussed that just to make sure that it was ok,
before we did it."
According to IDA Deputy Director Reynolds, the IDA
Board is contemplating hiring an outside contractor to
take care of their computers and Mr. Manning is also
being considered for that.
On October 29th, CM Dale Williams told the Observer,
"He can have outside employment. He's not doing it on
county time."
Later that afternoon, the Observer asked the county's
internal auditor, Judy Lewis, "What is the current
arrangement between the IDA and the County?"
Ms. Lewis' answer was direct and to the point: "We
deposit their money; pay their bills; write their pay
checks. They are part of the county. We treat them as a
department. They are paid with county pay checks. They
are paid with county money. The checks are co-signed by
the Clerk of the Courts [DeWitt Cason]. The IDA is a
subdivision of the county."
It doesn't get much clearer than that.