Linn supervisors unload on Auditor Miller

CEDAR RAPIDS - Linn County's Board of Supervisors on Wednesday worked over their frequent nemesis, Linn County Auditor Joel Miller.

The offensive came without answer because Miller, who typically punches and counterpunches with the supervisors, was attending a previously scheduled elections training session and did not attend the supervisors' formal weekly meeting.

Along the way Wednesday, in a 5-0 vote, the supervisors directed a special advisory team of top county employees who report to them to review Miller's office with an idea to move payroll and accounts payable functions and four employees from Miller's purview to either the county's Human Resources Department of its Budget & Finance Department.

On Monday, when the supervisors first discussed the review that may lead to stripping Miller's office of its payroll and accounts payable functions and four of its employees, Miller said he would still have duties to fulfill by state law and so would look to hire additional temporary employees.

By Wednesday, the supervisors were voting to block the hiring of temporary employees in the future without their approval.

Later Wednesday, Miller said this may be a matter to take to court as he and the supervisors disagree on a provision of state law that permits county auditors to hire employees.

'If I need people, I will bring them in as necessary to perform the statutory duties of my office,” he said.

The supervisors spent much of Wednesday's meeting discussing with Budget Director Dawn Jindrich a request by Miller to amend his budget for the fiscal year that will end on June 30 to cover $109,878 in spending over and above what has been approved in the year's budget.

The total budget for Miller's office for the year is $2.33 million, with $1.14 million of the total for spending on election services which was not under review on Wednesday.

Of the total in questioned spending for non-election services, $36,491 is needed as a one-time payout for unused vacation time by two deputy auditors who are retiring.

Supervisor Brent Oleson, who initiated the review of payroll and accounts payable services in Miller's office, asked Jindrich if the payout money can be added to the Human Resources Department's budget and not Miller's to make sure that Miller is not overstating the amount with an intent to use the money for something else.

Another $8,873 is being used to train an employee so the temporary employee can handle the duties of an employee who is taking a family leave.

Supervisor Linda Langston said county offices and departments have employees who take military and family leave and they don't usually need more in their budgets to handle it.

Miller is seeking another $64,514 for overtime and temporary employees.

According to Jindrich, Miller has used some temporary help in his effort to identify which elected officials and employees might not be correctly segregating duties or might have conflicts of interest.

Langston questioned why one of Miller's employees is spending time to make sure employees are not violating confidentiality matters related to health care when the county has its own officer to handle such matters. And Oleson said Miller continues to spend some $4,000 a year to subscribe to a legal services network to which the county attorney already subscribes.

Oleson said these spending questions are why Miller 'has to be singled out.”

He said other county offices have unforeseen budget needs during a budget year, but they typically tell the supervisors and the finance and budget directors before they spend. Miller already has spent this money without approval, he said.

At one point, Langston said she was particularly 'troubled by” Miller's spending practices because she said Miller has accused every other county elected official and some department heads of 'wrongdoing.” Not one time, she said, have accusations 'panned out.” Even so, those attacked have had to spend 'countless hours” and resources to answer Miller's 'fruitless” allegations, she said.

Later Wednesday, Miller said he had returned money to the county budget at the end of each of the previous eight budget years.

'Budgets are estimates anyway. Nobody ever etches them in stone,” he said.

Miller said much of the costs of overtime and temporary employees is the result of a 'faulty” software program purchased by the supervisors to handle real estate transactions. Miller said he has told the supervisors monthly about the problems.

'In the final analysis, their whole idea is to humiliate me on the budget that they set up to fail,” Miller said. 'They have convenient amnesia when it's time to beat up on Joel and take something away from him.”

Langston said she sees county employees as basically good and not, as Miller, as people who need to be investigated, she said. She said Linn County's reputation across Iowa for good government has been sullied by Miller's allegations.

Jindrich said the county could reduce some spending in Miller's office for the last two months of the fiscal year by ending overtime pay and contract work and not filling vacancies.

On Monday, Miller accused Oleson of retaliation because Miller questioned the county's support for a project favored by Oleson, the proposed Prospect Meadows baseball complex.

Supervisor Ben Rogers on Wednesday said the supervisors were not retaliating, but instead, were continuing an effort to find cost-savings in county government.

At one point, Oleson asked Jindrich if he or any other supervisor has called on her to raise questions on Wednesday about Miller's budget as a way to - in a reference to the recent death in Baltimore at the hands of police - give Miller '‘a rough ride in the back of the van' so to speak.”

Jindrich said she raised the budget issue.