2 Franklin commissioners dismissed warnings about $4,000 overpaid to officials

Franklin County got called to the carpet by state auditors this week for overpaying elected officials $4,000 in 2019.

Five elected officials and the county administrator have since repaid the money, but not before the Washington State Auditor’s Office weighed in with an official management letter.

In August, two county commissioners called on Prosecutor Shawn Sant to drop the issue but then agreed to wait for the state’s opinion.

While Sant supported resolving the issue earlier in 2021, County Auditor Matt Beaton told the Tri-City Herald this week he was concerned about the potential ramifications of contradicting a 2014 pay increase.

But this week, the State Auditor’s Office released a draft letter, bringing to an end a lingering question about the legality of the four months of back pay issued in 2019.

“The county issued these (cost of living adjustments) retroactively to Jan. 1, 2019, which is prohibited by the Washington State Constitution,” said the auditors. “The retroactive payments resulted in about $4,000 of unallowable compensation.”

Pay raises

The dispute has its roots in two 2019 resolutions approved to give 2.5% raises to the auditor, assessor, coroner, treasurer, clerk, who are elected officials, and the county administrator, who is a hired employee.

When the commissioners approved the measure, the pay increases were supposed to go into effect in April 2019, Sant said. The information provided with the resolution at the time showed the change would impact 2019 and 2020 differently, implying that it wasn’t supposed to apply to the entire year.

The problem happened when the county auditor’s office applied those raises from the start of 2019. Sant previously explained to the Herald that the state constitution doesn’t allow retroactive payments.

“The resolutions indicated that the effective date was April 9, 2019, and the auditor’s office applied this retroactively to Jan. 1, 2019,” Sant previously told the Herald. “Both the discussion in the board meeting April 9, 2019, and the agenda summary report show a different fiscal impact for 2019 and 2020 due to no retroactivity.”

Each of the elected officials was paid about $600. And most of the elected officials were waiting for a decision from the commissioners before returning the money after the issue was raised in 2021.

Beaton said prosecutor’s office officials signed off on a 2014 pay increase that was handled in a similar way.

“The commissioner’s were unsure what to do based on the potential cost of the prosecutor’s conflicting legal position,” Beaton told the Herald on Tuesday “The prosecuting attorney lobbied the members of the group to pay it back prior to a commissioner decision. Two complied, creating a problem when the board decided to take no action.”

He said he was grateful that state auditors were able to resolve the issue.

Beaton said the problem was more because of the method. If the elected officials had the money added to their pay starting in April, there wouldn’t have been a problem.

August commission meeting

The clash, which divided the elected officials, arose during the Aug. 31 meeting when two commissioners called for the matter to be dropped.

County Administrator Keith Johnson was asked by Sant to raise the legal problem.

“In other circumstances in the county when we have found that we have overpaid employees we have required them to pay that back,” Johnson said. “So the question before the board today is do you want us to pursue asking those elected officials to pay that back.”

At the time, Sant said the state auditor’s office confirmed that the payments violated the state constitution.

“I think the other officials are waiting for further board action,” Sant said at the time. “This is not alleging any kind of wrongdoing on anyone.”

Commissioner Clint Didier and Rocky Mullen didn’t support trying to get the money back unless the state auditors required it.

“It’s my thought that it’s not worth pursuing,” Mullen said at the meeting, adding he felt that there would be ill will that would come with trying to get the money back.

Didier at the time was upset that Sant hadn’t waited to get the commissioners input before offering his legal advice to the other officials.

“I, too, .... want to see this dropped immediately,” Didier said “This looks like a personal vendetta against other people in the courthouse, and I think this is too petty to even bother with.”

The commissioners decided to hold off until the auditors officially weighed in.

Commissioner Brad Peck supported waiting for the auditor to weigh in after the other commissioners weren’t interested in pursuing getting the money back.

“I believe that we have a legal obligation to bring that to the auditor’s attention,” Peck said at the time.

This story was originally published February 2, 2022 at 12:55 PM.