Spin cycle

We read in the Log Cabin that Sheriff Marty Montgomery threatened to pursue legal action against JP Catherin Blankenship over what he called malicious and slanderous comments. Montgomery says his records show the department was never in the red, but rather turned $112,000 back to the county after the end of the year. We find this hard to believe and it’s really kind of funny how the sheriff's office needed $87,000 in October and got offended when the committee asked why some line items were in the red. Then in December they needed $37,000 more to make it through to the end of the year because once again they didn’t spend the money as appropriated and once again got offended. This time they refused to show up to answer questions raised by the committee.

Now Montgomery says they returned $112,000 back to the county at the end of the year, so we have to ask where did the money come from? Was it in some kind of special account that no one knew about? If the money was there then why did they come to the F&A committee with their hat in hand asking for more? Maybe it was revenue made from selling confiscated property. Does any of this make sense to anyone?

Rachel Parker a Log Cabin reporter writes,

[Montgomery] said lowering the appropriation to one quarter is "(the committee's) attempt to micromanage the sheriff's office and only the sheriff's office."

Montgomery appealed to the rest of the court, pointing out the authority is with the full court and not with subcommittees of the court.

"If you want to go to the quarterly, it will not affect the way we do business. It's just another way to micromanage the sheriff's office," he said.

He said the costs associated with running a jail and a sheriff's office are unpredictable.

"Returning $100,000 means we've been pretty frugal," he said.

Montgomery encouraged any of the members of the court to come by the sheriff's office and spend time with his staff to see how the financial process works.

We really think the sheriff misses the point of quarterly appropriations, it is being done TO micromanage the sheriff's office because the committee is concerned about how the financial process works, or in this case doesn't work. The law says it is illegal to spend appropriated tax dollars on items that have not been appropriated but in November we discovered that there were 4 line item categories that were in the red by between 238% and 580%. The correct procedure would have been for the sheriff's office to notify the F&A committee BEFORE the any line item category goes negative so that more money can be appropriated. This is a standard accounting procedure for county government agencies and is what the quorum court is trying to get to.

Sheriff Montgomery goes on to say that JP Blankenship actions and comments were "politically motivated" because she is running for the office of County Judge in the upcoming election. But how does the sheriff explain why the other members 10 members of the quorum court voted for the quarterly appropriation, were they politically motivated?

Actually we think Sheriff Marty Montgomery has a point, the search for answers into the spending issues IS politically motivated. After all isn't it good politics for an elected official to stand up in defense of our county tax dollars? This is something that JPs Kelley and Thessing ought to consider while they try and defend the actions of a friend.

One does have to wonder why Sheriff Marty Montgomery is so worked up over quarterly appropriations and questions about spending within his department. After all there was an audit last year that revealed thousands in misspent money that has led to the F&A committee to seek reimbursement. Why all of a sudden has Sheriff Montgomery come out of hiding and is flex his muscles? One local forum member says, "it seems to me to be an effort to intimidate into silence," which is a valid assessment of the situation. Personally we think this latest spin is a prelude to some upcoming announcement by Sheriff Montgomery, it will be interesting to see what happens as this plays out.

Micro-management and raises for County Employees

As promised the F&A Committee of the Quorum Court recommended an ordinance that would allow the county to micro-manage the budget of the sheriff's office. This ordinance would appropriate money quarterly instead of yearly allowing the committee to keep a closer watch on spending within the sheriff's department. This idea would seem to be a good one but we suspect that the sheriff's office and at least one JP, Marvin Kelley, would have a problem with it. Look for this opposition at the next full quorum court meeting.

The F&A Committee also lived up to their promise and voted to give county employees a 3% raise retroactive to the first of the year. Although we do find that a 3% raise in pay is a slight bit low considering the cost of living increase was higher. People who are on society security got a 4.5% increase this year. But it's better than nothing right. There is one more hurdle this proposed raise will have to jump, it must be voted in and ratified by the full court.

Something that has been over looked however by the county is the millions in delinquent fines that still plagues the county. The county voted to publish a list of the delinquent fine owners in the Log Cabin but we haven't seen anything published lately. The first list you'll remember was littered with incomplete and inaccurate information that was suppose to be corrected in the next publication. But we did not see this published, maybe we missed it. At any rate the county has only seen a limited increase in the collection of these fines while millions are still owed. Maybe if the Quorum Court was to allow a collection agency to collect more of these fines a bigger raise could be given to the employees of this county next year.

Food for thought. . .

It comes down to choices

Coming up this Tuesday At 6:30pm is next F&A Committee Meeting and although it isn't listed on the official agenda we have been told that will be looking at changes to how money is appropriated for the sheriff's office.

At the last meeting of this committee entertained the idea of changing the sheriff's budget to quarterly allocations, pass an ordinance that the sheriff's dept. cannot go in the negative in any single line item, get a report back on who has vehicles and why (there are 51 somewhere), and get a report back on who has cell phones and why. The committee also wants to require the sheriff to get prior approval before spending for meals and lodging and cancel all the credit cards. The committee recognizes that there will be some problems that need to be worked out with these last two ideas but feel all of these steps are needed to correct the spending issues.

These measures are the result of choices the sheriff's office made in the management of the department. Facing a tight budget due to budget cuts in the 2005 budget, because of a surplus at the end of 2004, the department chose to ignore established accounting procedures and run many categories in the red without notifying the Quorum Court.

Once it all came to a head in late November and questions arose by the F&A Committee the sheriff's office was asked to explain their actions. The Committee ultimately had to appropriate additional monies and once again the sheriff's office didn't follow the correct procedure by running more line items in the red. This time the sheriff's office made another choice, they choose to ignore the F&A Committee's request for answers.

Speaking of choices, comments recently were made at this blog concerning raises for deputies and apparently the posters feel the problem is at the Quorum Court level. But the fact is it is another choice made by the sheriff and his management team.

The Sheriff is responsible for setting the budget for his department not the Quorum Court. The court simply approves or sends the budget back fro adjustments if it can't be done. Over the years Sheriff Montgomery chose to use his budget to fund trips to sheriff's conferences and a special FBI course for his political and professional career rather that spend money on raises. Montgomery also used this travel budget to take non-county personnel on these outings. If we were deputies we'd be a little pissed at this choice. It is choices like these that call for a new sheriff and management team.

In November the people will get to decide the route our sheriff's department takes. We recently asked one of the candidates for Sheriff what his view on this problem was. Democratic candidate Karl Byrd responded,

A lot of these problems will be easy to fix by simply putting the needed checks and balances in place and re-structuring administration and who is allowed to spend and under what circumstances. You must have set procedures and proper supervision to assure these practices are being followed. To restore the public's view of the department will take some time, hard work, and a lot of professionalism that will be best displayed by sound law enforcement, understanding of the laws, and dealing with the public in a fair and professional manner.

I do believe that I will be able to obtain raises for the deputies and hopefully more of them to better serve the public. I believe this can be done by establishing an open communication with the JP's and explain the needs of the department and the services required to keep our citizens safe. In this day and time, you just can't ask for money from the court and not provide information as to why you need it.

This is an exciting time in Faulkner County with the rapid growth in population, business, and industry, but we need to understand problems that can come with this rapid growth and that we MUST have a progressive law enforcement agency to be prepared for this.

This is probably going to be one of the most important elections that Faulkner County has ever experienced. Not just in my race, but also in the Judge's race, Representative races, and JP's. I hope that the citizens of this County consider these facts and ask questions as you have done before they cast their votes. . .

We agree wholeheartedly with Candidate Byrd on this matter, this will be a very important election for all the races in the county. . .

How soon we forget

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter Debra Hale-Shelton's recap of the spending woes at the sheriff's office sparked comments from JP Marvin Kelley. Kelley, a reserve deputy and member of the jail task force, spoke in defense of the sheriff's office even though the sheriff and his staff declined comment.

You may remember Kelley was one of the JPs who voted against the legislative audit that uncovered egregious incidents of theft and fraud saying, "I think it's a sad day in Faulkner County when our elected officials are beating each other up in the newspaper." He added, "I don't know how it should have been handled," he said. "If I were one JP with questions, why can't I just go say 'What's the problem?' One (JP) can go directly to a department head. It just appeared to me like it was politically motivated."

It would seem that he would liked to have kept this misspending under wraps and not let the public know where our money is being spent. But that's not what he promised to do in his 2002 campaign for JP. In his run against (D) Jerry Roberts, JP Kelley said, "What I want to do is just be a responsible and accountable representative for the people of the county. We've passed sales tax initiatives for the jail and roads, and we need to see some action," he added he wants to be sure the county isn't "wasting taxpayer money."

Now Kelley speaks out to defend those accused of misspending and wasting taxpayer's money, how soon do we forget. Debra Hale-Shelton writes,

. . . Tabor took aim at reportedly widespread credit-card abuse and evidence of theft by others in the sheriff's office while concluding that no criminal charges against Montgomery were warranted.

"Items from diapers to liquor were purchased using the cards", Tabor said.

Kelly, who is an unpaid reserve deputy, acknowledged the discovery of "a lot of things that were certainly improper or inaccurate" in the sheriff's office. Still he said, "I really don't think it was intentional wrongdoing. All of the people that work for the sheriff I believe to be honest people."

Kelley must think that "improper" actions, "widespread credit-card abuse", "inaccurate" reporting of expenses, and "evidence of theft" are definitions of honesty.

But what is really disturbing is the sheriff and his staff's actions when questioned about this matter, they refused to answer. They are members of our government who have once again misspent our tax dollars and they do not show up to answer questions by the Finance Committee. Furthermore they offer no explanation to the public other than that they are offended by these questions. Do they seriously think that childishly refusing to answer questions about where the money was spent is going to make them look good?

It looks like they still have things to hide and it appears that they have at least one JP that is willing to defend them for it.

Someone send the sheriff a box of Kleenex

In a story from yesterday's Log Cabin Rachel Parker says members of the administrative staff of the Faulkner County Sheriff's Office took offense at comments made after an emergency meeting of the finance committee last month.

Last November the committee gave the department an additional $86,000 appropriation that was to correct the overspending on monies from several line item categories so the department could make it to the end of the year. At that meeting Chief Deputy Wallace 'took offense' at people questioning their expenditures by people who really didn't understand what they do.

Now the department is offended by comments made by the JPs who are in charge of appropriating county funds and had to once again dish out money for negative line items. It's kind of like a parent giving their child money to help them make a car payment only to later find out the child had spent it on 'other things'. Now if you were that parent wouldn't you want to know why the car payment wasn't made?

For anyone who works at a department that is guilty of thousands of dollars in misspent money, in 2004, and that can't balance its budget, in 2005, to take offense is simply laughable. Someone please send the sheriff's office a box of Kleenex, they need to dry their eyes. They should probably open them too and take a good look around, people aren't buying it.

As JP Blankenship says, "The question was the oversight and controls and accountability. We tried to impress upon all the officials to be very frugal so we would have money for raises. There is no frugality in that department. We want them to live within a budget, not just spend and ask for more."

Speaking of raises, Sgt. Jason Bell, who was involved in that deadly shooting, gave his account of the incident that left one man dead. In his comments he notes that the city of Oppelo just started a police department with a salary that is higher than his and he has been at the department for almost nine years. He adds that a Sergeant at the Vilonia Police Department makes about $9,000 more a year.

Sgt. Bell and Deputy Martin were cleared of any wrong doing in the shooting by the way. Check out his comments about the shooing here, Conflicting reports. We think these officers and the other deputies who work to keep this county safe need to be fairly compensated for their work. But what these deputies need to understand is that it is the administration's fault for their lack of raises.

Too much money has been spent for the sheriff's "Great North American Road Trip" and other useless trips that do nothing more that further the career of the Sheriff. Also too much money has been misspent by this administration for personal items and/or gain. The administration has a duty first to the public and then to its officers, self has no place in this picture at all.

And lastly, we think the sheriff and his administration should know that the public takes offense at a department who spends our tax dollars on trips and meals for friends and family members, we take offense at a department who spends our tax dollars for personal items such as tuition payments and everything from diapers to liquor, and we take offense at a department that can't balance their books.

Year in review

Well it’s been quite a year for Faulkner County Sheriff Marty Montgomery and staff; they should feel very fortunate to still be employed and not facing criminal charges. For much of the year the department has been under investigation for spending infractions that turned out to be far worse than anyone knew, well except for the violators that is.

But much in the same way the sheriff’s office has ignored criminal acts, the judges and prosecutors have allowed the sheriff and his staff to get away with misspending our tax dollars. This is quite a system of justice we have in this country, a person can be convicted of embezzlement as long as they are not holding public office would seem to be the lesson we get from this mess.

We’d like to offer our ‘thanks’ to special prosecutor Stephen Tabor for his ‘outstanding job’ of defending the people of this county. It’s too bad that he’s from Sebastian County, we could have shown him our ‘thanks’ at the polls this coming November.

The Faulkner County Detention Center also received favorable rulings by our justice system in a lawsuit brought by the ACLU for the chronic overcrowded conditions of the jail. A U.S. Magistrate dismissed the case saying he was “not entirely satisfied" with the average numbers of inmates held at the facility, but that the "totality of the circumstances" called for the lawsuit to be dismissed.

U.S. Magistrate Judge H. David Young also noted that the ACLU failed to show that the county was deliberately indifferent to the inmates' serious health and safety needs, he said he found no evidence of deliberate indifference. "Deliberately indifferent" whom was he kidding, stuffing 200 inmates in a facility built to hold 121 inmate (140 inmates by fire code regulations) isn't indifferent to their safety?

Chalk up another one for Sheriff Montgomery and the County; they seem to be living ‘charmed’ lives as justice takes another one on the chin. By our count last year our lady of justice is way behind, she has some serious making up to do if she is to win this fight.

It’s also been quite a year for the County Judge’s Office and the Quorum Court. County Judge John Wayne Carter seen a lawsuit accusing him of violating bidding procedures by allowing a JP at the time’s company to repair a county building be dismissed by a special judge appointed to hear the case. What’s with these special legal eagles these days, do they not see anything as illegal?

Now we come to our Quorum Court and it Finance Committee. It would seem that after a year like this the court should be feeling a slight bit impotent when it comes to it power in controlling the budgets of the county’s agencies. After all they have tried to get to the bottom of the spending problems at the sheriff’s office and demanded that new procedures be established as they agree to give the sheriff an additional $86,000 appropriation only to see that misspent as well.

The Quorum Court and the County Judges office need to come to the realization that the only way to prevent the misspending at the sheriff’s office is to come down hard on the violators and get rid of those credit cards that the sheriff and his staff freely hand out to anyone who needs to by something. They also need to spoon feed money to the sheriff and make the department submit a request to the county for things prior to their purchase.

Yep it was quite a year, here’s to hoping for a better one this year. . .