Linn County battle brewing over internal auditing

A deputy auditor fired by Linn County Auditor Joel Miller last month went on the offensive even as a fight brews between supervisors and Miller over his hiring of an internal county auditor to replace her.

Mark Wold, husband to former Deputy Auditor Sue Wold, wrote a letter to supervisors Thursday night demanding that Miller provide a reason for his wife's firing. The Wolds say they requested a letter to “validate that her appointment was pulled not because of job performance.”

“Maybe he is too busy with his Twitter,” Mark Wold wrote.

Wold wrote that the letter is not an attack on the supervisors, for whom his wife has “only positive thoughts and memorys [sic] of her 31 yrs of service with Linn Co, except for the last 1 1/2 years under Mr. Miller.”

Miller said Friday he was sending a letter to Human Resources explaining his decision about Wold.

“I did a reorganization, and I determined that I needed to eliminate that person from that position, and to find someone else that had skill sets I was looking for,” Miller said Friday. “She can say whatever she wants to say, and she will, so why get into that?”

The supervisors were already uncomfortable with Miller's decision to replace the longtime deputy. He said he wanted to hire someone with accounting training who would split time between election oversight and internal auditing of the county. And then he went ahead and hired Karen Heiderscheit on Monday, without getting the go-ahead from supervisors. Heiderscheit has a four-year degree in accounting and has worked in the auditor's office for six years.

Heiderscheit will make $51,675, compared with the $87,663 Wold made, Miller said.

The supervisors will weigh in Monday on whether to allow Heiderscheit's appointment as a deputy in Miller's budget, for which they hold the purse strings.

“Joel's entitled to appoint whoever he wants. The only issue of control we have is over the number of deputies,” Langston said.

Budget and finance officials under the supervisors have been miffed at Miller because he said the county budget needs better oversight. Langston said she doesn't object to the idea of internal auditing - she just thinks the position should be under the supervisors, and not an elected official's deputy, a “political appointment.”

Miller, who is often at odds with the Board of Supervisors, said he is “being subjected to a scrutiny that has not been applied to any other elected officer.” The supervisors, he said, sign payroll authorizations to replace deputy elected officials as a matter of course.

Only since he's emphasized internal auditing has the issue blossomed into a controversy, he said.

“They basically don't want me, as auditor, to audit,” Miller said.