Clayton County supervisors confront auditor

ELKADER - 'You set me up for failure,” Clayton County Auditor Dennis Freitag told the Board of Supervisors after they questioned him, under oath, Monday about the deterioration of the county's books while he cares for his dying wife.

In a prepared statement that the Clayton County supervisors cut short, Freitag said they trimmed one of his four deputy auditors at the start of the year and denied his request for a part-time clerk. Those staff cuts, he said, impaired the Auditor's Office's ability to keep pace when the worsening of his wife's illness required increasing commitments of his time.

The supervisors, in a statement released after their 90-minute interrogation, said Freitag, in his 39th year in office as the elected auditor, has failed to live up to his commitments to them and to county residents.

'His lack of any progress to resolve (numerous) issues under his control has brought us unfortunately to this day,” the statement said. Those issues, the supervisors said, include lack of timely reports, lack of completed reports and failure to meet deadlines.

The lack of timely filings and financial reports has cost the county money and threatens its continued functioning, the supervisors said.

Supervisor Larry Gibbs said the board would take no action at the close of Monday's questioning.

'We will meet with the county attorney and review his answers,” said Gibbs, who acknowledged that state law has provisions for removing elected officials from office.

Chapter 66 of the Iowa Code, for example, states that county officers may be removed from office by the district court for, among other offenses, 'willful or habitual neglect or refusal to perform the duties of the office.”

Monday's questioning, conducted mainly by Supervisor Ron McCartney, covered the status of job requirements and their completion dates. Those items were listed on an outline given Oct. 6 to Freitag, along with the summons to appear before the board.

Supervisors said Freitag declined their suggestion that he take a leave of absence, opting instead to run the office from home.

Freitag said the increasing demands of his wife's care left little time for that.

He said the round-the-clock care required by his wife, Pam, who is dying of lupus, put him between the rock of his oath to care for his wife in sickness and in health and the hard place of the oath he has sworn 10 times to faithfully discharge the duties of his office.

Freitag said he intends to live up to his wedding vows.

Noting that Freitag still plays golf once a week, board Chairman Gary Bowden said the unfinished county work seems to reflect questionable priorities.

'It's called respite,” Freitag replied. The three-hour weekly round of golf, he said, is his only recreation. 'I don't think I've overdone it at all.”

Freitag's wife is under hospice care in the closing days of her 42-year struggle with lupus, a chronic inflammatory disease that occurs when one's immune system attacks the body's own tissues and organs.

Gibbs, in his fourth term as supervisor, said Freitag has at his home key documents and data needed by office staff to do the work.

Freitag, who was accompanied Monday by Cedar Rapids lawyer Peter Riley, said staff members are welcome to stop by his home and pick up what they need.

Linn County Auditor Joel Miller, who has had his share of contention with Linn supervisors, said Monday he supports Freitag.

Office staff should be capable of performing required duties while he cares for his sick wife, Miller said.

The supervisors' requirement that Freitag answer their questions under oath is needlessly intimidating and implies that he's done something wrong, Miller said.

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