PART I
Post-mortem on one great, fast & loose spending county
By GIL BRADY
The Cowboy Picayune-Sunny Times
Filed 1.12.07
Updated 1.22.07, 12:01 a.m., MST
TETON COUNTY, Wyo. — (CT) Humorist P.J. O’Rourke once wrote: “When someone creates a system in which you can’t tell whether or not you’re being fooled, you’re being fooled.”
Perhaps, that odd chestnut best explains how a nagging local uproar and five-month state criminal investigation—over at least $20,000 in alleged misspending by a handful of public servants here—was short-changed by its own mandate.
“Well that’s true,” Prosecuting Attorney Steve Weichman said this month about Wyoming's Division of Criminal Investigation’s scope being limited by his request to a single transaction.
“But it’s more complicated," he continued. "They have (wider) jurisdiction in certain (cases). They don’t have jurisdiction about allegations concerning a county employee unless they appear to be dealing drugs, child porn, etc.”
Before clearing County Engineer Craig Jackson of wrongdoing in the investigation, Weichman said he saw no reason, based on information provided, to have probed any other county employee or official for alleged offenses.
Besides Jackson’s tabs, an informant provided Weichman’s office with a detailed spreadsheet alleging over 300 bills lacking itemized or legitimate receipts, as required by law, submitted or approved by higher-ups in county government here.
Explaining his decision this month, Weichman reportedly told The Jackson Hole News & Guide: “Statutes do not envision a cash register receipt.”
Whistleblower’s raft of allegations ignites uproar
Released days before Christmas, the 31-page DCI report names a 66-page document, created by county whistleblower Phillip Delaney, calling-out nearly $6,500 in non-itemized and unknown expenses by Jackson, his former boss, and about $12,750 in questionable gifts and spending approved by county commissioners, present and past.
“For a county with a budget of $44 million, $20,000 in sloppy spending over seven years indicates to me commissioners are doing a great job,” Weichman said about Delaney’s spreadsheet, covering a fraction of the county’s 26 departments.
Conflicts-of-Interest?
The county’s top law enforcement official also addressed possible conflicts-of-interest among his sworn duty to defend the county and his oath to enforce statutes and protect taxpayers from misuses of public funds.
“Analyzed at that level there are profound conflicts,” Weichman said before recalling then-Freemont County Attorney Norm Young’s uncontested prosecution of the sheriff for taking drugs from an evidence locker. “What happens if the county clerk comes to me and says: ‘Sue the commissioners because they hired someone to do my job—they are infringing on my statutory turf’?”
Asked last September if he would prosecute lawbreakers in the scandal, Weichman said: “Probably.”
Delaney’s document and county vouchers show official spending on such unofficial or non-itemized expenses as: flowers; gifts; booze; a $300 get-a-way to a Montana spa; cell phone bills; tuition expenses; and years of meals around town for free.
Though DCI’s report annexed Delaney’s raft of allegations, investigators could only examine one 2005 Texas seminar turned junket when Jackson and his girlfriend, a non-county employee, rang up charges outside the host city.
Also, DCI questioned Jackson about double-billing and extra noshing on days when taxpayers had paid for Jackson to attend a $525 seminar on waste and trash, meals included.
DCI also explored counter-allegations by Jackson and his secretary, Betty Burmeister.
Infidelity?
Burmeister, who reportedly told DCI “the county is loose in their policy,” suggested Delaney, burned by an unrequited fling with a woman dating Jackson, his ex-boss, had concocted the scandal out of revenge.
Delaney “has an axe to grind,” an investigator noted Burmeister said.
Investigators also noted Burmeister’s surprise to discover Jackson had flown first-class to Texas as Betty B said she usually booked cheaper airfares.
Nowhere did DCI note that Delaney’s accusations about the county's wasteful spending habits were unfounded.
In a recent article, County Administrator Jan Livingston, of the NCAA basketball tix give-a-way sensation some years back, criticized Delaney’s behavior as disruptive and said of some bills, such as employee tuition, “What kind of receipt do you need for that?”
More than a year after gifting the county planner and his family the six tickets and complementary airfare in 2001, Livingston and the employee reportedly repaid $175 of the $1,394 in taxpayer generosity.
But original questions, as raised by News & Guide editor Angus M. Thuermer, Jr., remain: “Was county money spent according to law? Why didn't the county use standard personnel policies instead of a gift to reward a hard-working employee? Does the county need to be reimbursed for more or all of the $1,394?”
And, oh yeah? Did anyone report any of this, or other "gifting," on their income taxes as generally required by IRS law for freebies over $250? And has the county done the same in its books?
Lastly, will local auditors look into any of this wallowing at the public trough, or blow it off as business across the street as usual?
Betty B and Jackson explained that the use of two county credit cards, attending only portions of seminars relevant to Jackson’s work, and other confusions, had led to the $1,115 airfare and various excessive charges on the trip.
Before resigning last November, Jackson said his spending at times “might have been on the line,” but he never intended “to defraud the county.”
Also, he would repay any instances of double-billing and was proud of his work on the county’s infrastructure.
“Have you seen our state-of-the-art trash compactor?” Jackson said last September before Livingston entered and advised, over protests by a reporter, he end the meeting.
According to DCI, the purported mistress told Burmeister, before Jackson's secretary was interviewed by DCI, that she did not have an affair with Delaney, who is still married. The woman in question, DCI reported, sought to get Delaney fired after Delaney issued a memo about her alleged misuse of county resources.
A DCI investigator wrote that Delaney reported Jackson's girlfriend to their higher-ups for her improperly using a county vehicle to drive her kids to school.
In an e-mail, Delaney’s lawyer, Gary Shockey, said: “Phil denies he had an affair with (the woman). Phil denies that he said or inferred that he had an affair…in any conversation with Betty Burmeister.”
Ethical lapses?
Additional public records and official responses portray a county whose personality clashes and com
peting agendas somehow missed many instances, over a seven-year period, of cronyism and ethical lapses on spending, bidding and graft.
Loose spending persisted despite an official warning four and half years ago about the county’s billing protocols in a memo sent to all 26 departments by county attorney Keith Gingery.
Since then, officials here have paid for: dinners at steak and lobster houses; a $933 office chair; mojitos for two; boys night at Reno strip bars; lunches around town; feasts with state lawmakers; official trips that became little more than subsidized vacations, with minimal or no explanatory records; free gas; and a $14,000 no-bid spruce up of the commissioners’ chambers, a seven-month review of more than 500 hundred county records and 10 interviews show.
Latest loose spending, old news
More recently, Gingery admitted loopholes existed in the system, but he saw no intent to deceive by bureaucrats here. Apparently, other county bosses did not share his concern for another elected official’s worries.
As far back as 2003, Gingery recently told the local paper, County Clerk Sherry Daigle had been ignored by department heads after "complaining" and "pushing hard" for more documentation on claims.
Last September, commissioners reprimanded employees in “executive session,” took measures to tighten policy, and restored Daigle’s power to reject tabs lacking sufficient itemization.
Three months later, Weichman closed the matter.
In a July 2002 memo titled “Authorized Expenditures and Uses of County Funds and Property,” Gingery urged county honchos to obey laws on government ethics and avoid misuses of their office.
The memo warns about: in-town meals unrelated to county business; alcohol; personal long distance calls; late fees on credit cards; personal postage; entertainment; flowers; and “Gifts of any kind.”
The same statute also bans all public servants from using “public funds, time, personnel, facilities or equipment for [their] private benefit or that of another unless the use is authorized by law.”
Also prohibited is the sharing of “official information which the [public servant] obtains through or in connection with [their] position, unless the information is available to the general public or unless the dissemination is authorized by law.”
Cautions exist in the statute about making decisions if a government worker has an obvious personal or private interest in the matter. Penalties for convictions range from fines up to $1,000 to removal from office or position.
Free Speech & Whistleblowers
Last summer, Delaney alleged, during a luncheon with Weichman and former commissioner Jim Darwiche, that then-commission chairman Leland Christensen, through a message relayed by Darwiche, believed Delaney “was no longer protected by whistle
blower laws”.
Christensen, now the county’s vice-chair, said recently about Darwiche's purported message: “You know? I don’t know what Jim said. I wasn’t there. I would be speculating about what he said.”
Last fall, at a downtown hotel, Darwiche confirmed telling Weichman and Delaney about Christensen’s take on a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling restricting the free speech of public employees. Darwiche added he saw no veiled threat in the communication.
Christensen said this month he believed commissioners’ actions and spending were consistent with the county attorney's interpretation of statutes.
Currently, the county is awaiting the final results of its 2nd annual audit by Linsenmann & Linsenmann, LLC.
Copies of the executive summary are available from the Office of the County Clerk for about $15. Reserve yours before they're all gone at (307) 733-4430
Stay with The Cowboy Times, "First in News, Last in BS!"Artwork: 1)"Bald Eagle" by the one and only Andy Warhol; 2) Teton County Prosecuting Attorney Steve Weichman; 3) County attorney & Rep. Keith Gingery (R-Jackson) via on-line stock images.
(Next UP: A rollicking autopsy of graf$, and how at least one local Pharaoh is still apparently grifting the county).
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