Opinion : Supervisor notes for 4/2/24 (Part 2)

---Warning, it's a long one but will answer questions.

In the second half of the Supervisor's meeting, the meeting was turned over to Sue Wilber the Benton County Human Resource Director, who according to the agenda had an update. She talked for more than 15 minutes after saying she had allegedly been approached by one staff member and one nonstaff member to clarify concerns or misconceptions.

She said she was encouraged to clear up some of those unknowns or miscommunications that had been said or "written and that sorta thing." She began with what she said that she does or has done.

She started with a performance review policy for all staff.

She said that he had implemented a county wide texting program which it appears is not functioning as planned. Auditor Hayley Rippel had a question about that as she wasn't receiving texts. Wilber said that Rippel had opted out. Rippel assured her that she had not.

Updating job postings to make them more attractive to potential employees is something else she said has accomplished.

A few weeks ago Vinton Today was contacted to post a county position because for some reason it could not run on the county website.

She said that she had "Resurrected a Wellness Committee" and the "Safety Committee."

At last week's meeting, she was challenged because she did not include Scott Hansen, the Benton County Emergency Management Manager in this Safety Committee. Hansen is in charge of major safety issues that might occur in the county. She told Hansen that he hadn't responded to her email about the meeting. He emphatically stated to her that he had indeed IMMEDIATELY responded. She then apologized.

She continued that she had updated the County Handbook she said based on employee feedback. Switched the flex spending vendor to save the county money, and reintroduced the county meeting, and handing out service pins.

She "implemented countywide challenges and a traveling trophy to promote team building." County employees participated in activities like Halloween door decorating contests and decorating Valentine boxes.

She said that the county is in the process of converting to online enrollment benefits, electronic time attendance and leave tracking.

Then she addressed what she called misconceptions and misunderstandings.

She said that in a meeting and in writing it was stated that she ordered someone to take cameras down. She said that she doesn't have that authority to oversee IT and that IT reports to the Supervisors. (IT reports to the Safety Committee, who goes to the Supervisors for approval.)

"The county's determined that it wants to follow the handbook," she said that's why she looked into matters at their request. She said that employees sign off on the handbook and the rules.

She addressed comments about going after an individual, a witchhunt, an axe to grind, and said that her job is to look into complaints. She said that everything she does is to try prevent and protect the county from liability.

"Expectations of honesty are part of the job following the handbook, that's why she did that. Not my choice at my request," she said.

Concerning looking into a different vendor for processing payroll, (the job of the Auditor) she said she doesn't want to take those duties over. She said that "concerns were brought forward...for example taking a deduction from an employee if they didn't authorize the deduction." She implied that payroll laws change and that having someone that does that day in and day out..."

"Payroll laws are changing, laws only get more complicated, over time, rather than less, so by having someone that does that day in and day out they can help shield the county, the Auditor's office from liability."

She went on to imply that the office had failed to perform a task not required by law, and the Auditor corrected her. "That wasn't a requirement," Rippel interrupted.

"Is it okay if I finish?" Wilber retorted.

Rippel responded, "Yes, but that wasn't a requirement, just suggested." The form Wilbur mentioned came out in December, and the county had contacted employees in January.

Supervisor Primmer jumped in, "Please go on."

Wilber went on to say that the county should tell employees that "Because of your tax bracket...you might want to fill out this form."

Wilber went on to say that they should tell employees when laws change and that's why there is a need to have someone that does that day in and day out. Stating that she had been "asked to do that and if it's not wanted for me to do that, the board needs to tell me that they do not want me to look into those potential things anymore."

Reinterating that, "It's really hard to keep up on all of those things and having someone who does this day in and day out...that was the motivation for that."

I contacted the Auditor's office after it was implied that the Auditor's office doesn't know what they're doing. Currently, there are two employees who deal with payroll, tax forms, etc..."day in and day out." In the meeting Rippel noted that, "With the misconception of payroll errors, yes errors happen, but we can't fix them unless the employee comes to us," to fix the problem. Again, this is a job that the Auditor's Office does, "day in and day out."

Wilber addressed legal fees that she had incurred on behalf of the county stating that sometimes the county attorney directs her to reach out to outside legal because his specialty is not employment law. Sometimes we will both reach out to outside legal. "Sometimes we need to get another perspective or opinion when we're dealing with something sensitive." One such fee incurred was to research Auditor's duties.

"My attendance at board meetings was brought up, I believe that was a recommendation from legal," she went on. "I'm trying to learn a new job." She talked about she learned about roads, and meets people in the community, "That's why I'm here to try to increase my knowledge and understand things."

"It has been brought up about asking for clarification on Iowa Code," another legal fee, "That's another piece of me trying to learn. When you start a job and certain expectations are shared, they go a certain way and then all of a sudden they change, that's confusing." This is in reference to Wilber's belief that she should keep some of the original documents rather than the Auditor's office. Implying that it somehow had changed from when she first began her job. "No disrespect to anyone but that's how I learn and understand." The Auditor had clarified the issue for her, simply by asking for the original copies to be filed.

"Responding to the Board of Health letters, it was asked if that was part of my job description. My job description has a line that says, 'other duties as assigned.'" She said that letters were forwarded from the Auditor's office to both her and the County Attorney. The two spoke and she says that the County Attorney had asked her to respond to the Board of Health.

"The outside employment also seems to be an issue of concern," Wilber continued. "I'm not a parole officer, I know that was listed somewhere...I do still do some work for my former employer and typically it's on weekends and once in a while at night, and when I interviewed for the position, Megan (Hall, former assistant County Attorney)...I asked Megan if that would be okay to continue to do that. Megan went back to the hiring committee which consisted of Supervisor Primmer, representative from Conservation, two from the Sheriff's Office, one from the Treasurer's Office, and one from Secondary Roads and they didn't see a problem with that.

"My contract was then drafted and there's nothing written in it the precludes me from doing that. The Handbook doesn't prevent outside employment, and there are multiple staff that have outside jobs...I think even maybe Hayley has an outside business as well."

Rippell responded, "Oh, don't throw my cookies in there."

"Someone just said that," Wilber answered.

LinkedIn also came up. LinkedIn is a social website for professionals to coordinate. She stated, "Evidently my LinkedIn still had my former employer on there, and somebody was concerned about that...and thank you Kelly (VanRee) for sharing that. I did update that."

"Documentation also came up, why am I always taking notes to hold it against them later? HR does take notes you can ask an attorney...and again to try to learn."

"The request for part-time help. It's my understanding, that this position when it was created 3 or 4 years ago, the goal was to have a second full-time person after the department was up and running....It came up in my employee review in October that I needed to get some help because I was working a lot of hours doing a lot of things. We have about 150 staff members...the recommended staff is 1.7...I thought I'd start with a part-time person, not spend a lot of money..."

Rippel asked when the idea of having two employees in this department had come about and if it was in the meeting in October where Rippel was kicked out...noting that "there had been a lot of activities since that meeting."

Primmer said, "I honestly can't recall. Sometimes I just can't hardly remember what I did last week. It happens. And I bet Gary can understand that."

At the end of the meeting Rippel corrected errors made in Wilbers statements concerning the Auditor's office and Primmer interjected, "If we could quickly move on..."

A question was asked about who dealt with HR before there was an HR. Rippel answered that her office had. Then when COVID came, with people out sick, she requested some help with policies and outsourcing to deal with that. She said that is when the Supervisors decided that she wouldn't be able to outsource it and that they wanted an inhouse person to do that.

Also mentioned by Kellie VanRee was an email that she had sent to Primmer privately concerning Wilber's second job, and she wondered how Wilber had obtained it when she hadn't received a reply. It was unclear how that happened.