Shelby County – Private Attorney hired for one thing, billing for others –

Shelby Co. (ECWd) –

We covered the hiring of a private attorney in Shelby County in this article and to date have not recieved a single response to our questions to the County Chairman or the State’s Attorney.  While we wait for their response we will share some more information that should concern every taxpayer in Shelby County.

For the sake of this article, let’s assume such hiring was legal.  For those that want to say there is no need to assume and that such hiring is legal, we welcome any statutory provision permitting such hiring as was done in Shelby County.  As additional proof this attorney is not a Special Assistant State’s Attorney, a position of employment, one only needs to look at the IRS 1099 he recieved for 2019 payments.  Employees are not issued 1099s, contractors are.

The resolution used for the hiring of an attorney outlines, as we exposed before, hiring was for labor negotiations for the 2014-2015 budget year.

Reviewing the billing is most telling, not to mention the billing continues even though his hiring was only for the 2014-2015 budget year. Below is an example of items the taxpayers already pay to have handled by their County State’s Attorney.  As you can see from the attorney billing in 2018-2019, there are plenty of things being billed for that have nothing to do with Labor Negotiations from the 2014-2015 Budget Year.

• Conferred with Sheriff regarding Gun Sales
  
• Conferred with Gina (2) regarding employment pro ration of paid compensation time and resignation in lieu of official misconduct
• Conferred with Gina discussed Employment Separation Agreement
• Research salaries of elected officials and county board members in comparable counties
• Conferred with State’s Attorney regarding 3rd party investigation
• Draft/revise spreadsheet of elected official salaries from comparable counties
• Email spreadsheet to David Cruitt.
• Phone call to Jersey County regarding method of compensation of their County Board Members.
• Research County Board Member compensation for Montgomery, Christian, and Moultrie Counties and revise spreadsheet to include additional information.
• Email revised spreadsheet to David Cruitt.
• Meeting with State’s Attorney and Sheriff (we believe this was in regard to the illegal guns sales we exposed but not written about yet)
• Conferred with Dove regarding pay out of comp time;
• Review FOIA request from Police Union representative.
• Email Jessica Fox with various questions regarding the FOIA request.
• Reply to email from Erica regarding additional information about the FOIA request.
• Review FOIA Statute and related case law related to the FOIA request.
• Draft letter denying the FOIA request.
• Conference call with Erica and EFF to discuss IRS issue related to clothing allowance for police officers
• Email exchange with Erica regarding resolution with the sheriff department related to the clothing allowance issue.

Stay tuned for more information regarding gun sales in Shelby County and how a former county employee avoided official misconduct charges, yet was allowed to receive unemployment, even though the person was terminated and escorted out of the courthouse.  We believe those two matters are more than worthy of further exposure as it expands on how local officials perform their duties.

We understand the next County Board meeting is February 13th at the Courthouse.  While their published regular meeting time is 9 am, we understand this meeting is set to be held at 7:30 am.  If that changes we will update with a new article so that people are aware as to when and where the meeting is going to be held.

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