Hill County Commission squabbles over missing minutes

In a meeting Thursday the Hill County Commission denied a request to grant sufficient overtime to Commission Executive Assistant and Hill County Commissioner-elect Sheri Williams to address a backlog of minutes necessary for the county to avoid fines during an upcoming audit later this month.

At the meeting Hill County Clerk and Recorder Sue Armstrong said she, along with her Deputy Clerk and Recorder Lexis Dixon, who will become Clerk and Recorder in January, and Williams had a meeting Monday with the commission to request that Williams be granted overtime to address the last of a backlog of minutes she’s been working on since she became assistant two year ago.

Williams has been working on this backlog since she was hired in December of 2020 and because she’s had to address that backlog she still has a few months of minutes for the current year that need to be done.

Armstrong said the commission granted Williams, who was ill and not at Thursday’s meeting, leave to work for a few hours after each day in order to finish the last of this backlog before the audit later this month, but since then Williams has been furnished with a letter saying the commission only approved one hour per day, which is not enough time to get the minutes done.

Armstrong said she doesn’t understand why the commission is going back on what it said Monday and assured them that they need those minutes before the auditors arrive or the county is going to get fined.

Dixon said that, last year, when the auditors came the lack of minutes heavily interfered with them and the county was charged $2,000 in late fees, and unless they want that to happen again they need the minutes by the time auditors arrive Dec. 12.

“We need those minutes by then,” she said. “ … They were technically due Nov. 14.”

Armstrong said Williams isn’t going to spend more time on this project than necessary, especially during the holidays, so the time will be used efficiently.

“It’s not like she’s going to abuse it, she wants to go home, too, she has a family,” she said.

She said the commission is going back on its word and is treating the county’s employees with disrespect.

McLean said she doesn’t understand why these minutes are needed when the audit is for the previous year, the minutes for which are already done.

Armstrong said the reason they need all the minutes up to date is so auditors can see if payments set up during the year they’re examining were followed through on, something she said she would have explained had she been asked before this point.

“We’ve always done this, always,” Armstrong said.

Before conversation about overtime could continue Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson said Armstrong is to blame for the backlog in the first place, saying the assistant who should have been taking minutes at the time was her responsibility.

Armstrong said that was completely incorrect, saying her office is responsible for filing minutes when they get them, but the responsibility for having them done lies on the commission itself.

In an email this morning Armstrong said minutes did get backlogged in March of 2015 after the death of Lois Ann Nichols, who was the deputy clerk and recorder responsible for commission business at the time, but Williams said the oldest minutes she’s had to work on as part of the backlog only date back to 2017.

In January of 2018 the Commission voted 2 to 1 to change the deputy clerk and recorder position to an assistant position to be under the authority of the commission itself rather than the Clerk and Recorder’s office, with McLean and Peterson voting for and then-commissioner Mike Wendland voting against.

Argument over whose responsibility the backlog persisted for a few minutes before McLean said it was a moot point.

Armstrong also said she has repeatedly asked the commissioners to come in Fridays to correct the minutes that are done, without much success, even though the commissioners are full time.

McLean said that was “he said, she said,” before announcing that the commission was moving on from that point.

At the meeting the commissioners also approved write-in candidate Jeff Dibblee to be sworn in as Hill County Public administrator, and voted to remove the county’s burn ban.

Peterson said after the county moved out of Stage 1 Fire Restrictions they kept a burn ban in place at the request of the local fire departments, but conditions are such that he thinks it can now be removed.