A lawsuit between Emery County and Leslie Bolinder, former senior administrative assistant to the Emery County Commissioners was recently settled. Bolinder was a county employee for 27.5 years.
The matter went into mediation and the settlement amount was for $75,000. The settlement will be paid by the county’s insurance company. The county hired Scott Crook as the personnel lawyer for the legal process and Katy Steffey as a lawyer for the Career Service Council.
Crook was first retained in February of 2015. During this February meeting of the Emery County Commissioners, the following agenda item was approved. “The board approved the use of the legal services of Arnold & Crook Law Offices for review of the Emery County Personnel Policy and Procedures Manual. Mary Huntington, personnel director said the policy was last reviewed in 2009. The law office will give a detailed recommendation and present a report to Huntington and the commissioners as well as county attorney Mike Olsen,” as reported in the Emery County Progress on Feb. 24.
Crook returned in August 2015 to report his findings to the Emery County Commission. Quoting from the Emery County Progress report of this meeting on Aug. 18, 2015. “Scott Crook from the Arnold and Crook Law Firm reviewed the new Personnel Policies and Procedure Manual for Emery County. He works with cities and counties to make sure their policy and procedure handbook is up to date with state law. Regulations have changed over the years and he looked for things not in compliance with state statute. The anti-discrimination portion of the policy manual will be updated with changes with non-discrimination based on sex and religion. He said he has modeled the Emery County manual after other counties he has worked with.
“The commissioners said they haven’t read the entire manual yet and would like to table approval until they have completed the book.
“At-will employees were discussed and career service employees. Career service employees have protection under the law that changing elected officials can’t come in and get rid of them and replace them with employees they select. These protections were started with the labor movement to protect civil servants.
“Commissioner Keith Brady said in the private sector you can fire someone without stating a reason and in the government side, sometimes people give half-hearted work and it’s difficult to fire someone. These protections do not apply to contract, seasonal and temporary workers. They went over the steps to take for a non performing employee. Such employees could be disciplined and the procedure for this was outlined.
“Record keeping and computer safety are also part of the manual. Each department can have a stand alone policy for department specific issues. The main policy is for the entire county. The conflict of interest and disclosure policy has been updated. An employee cannot be a direct supervisor of a family member,” end of August 2015 article.
On June 2, 2016, Leslie Bolinder was called into a meeting where she was informed her position as administrative assistant was being eliminated. The position would be replaced with three part-time confidential secretaries. Each commissioner would be responsible for hiring their own confidential secretary.
Bolinder requested a letter stating her termination date. She received a letter from the County Attorney Mike Olsen which stated her date of termination was June 2, 2016.
In the June 7, 2016 commission meeting, the personnel policy was addressed:
The agenda item stated: Consideration and decision on proposed Resolution Amending Title 1, Chapter C, of the Emery County Personnel Policies and Procedures Manual regarding Commission Senior Administrative Assistant position (to three part-time and Executive, Administrative Assistants.
Commission chairman Keith Brady read the item on the agenda it was seconded and approved without any prior discussion in a recent commission meeting.
Crook returned to the June 7 meeting at the request of the county commissioners. He stated he has been an employment attorney since 1998. This is a regular part of his practice. He said he reviews policies and suggests changes related to human resource matters. Their law office is retained by several entities. “If you recall, I spoke last September and made recommendations that the county consider changing positions and take all department heads and the secretary of the county commission to make at will employees.” Crook explained the civil service system established around the time of Teddy Roosevelt. This means that most employees who are essentially non-management level, won’t be fired at will by government. Upper-level cabinet positions at the executive level change with a new administration. “My recommendation was to adopt the same thing and simply follow the statute that exists in Utah,” stated Crook.
“A citizen Val Payne asked a question. He views three separate secretaries serving each commissioner could cause a lot of important information to fall through the cracks. There needs to be coordination to keep people in touch. He said the experience Bolinder has is invaluable to the county. He sees the position as administrative assistant to be one where confidences must be kept.
“Crook said that is a point well taken and each commissioner must be able to trust their secretaries to keep confidences.
Payne said, “It’s a poor idea and poor management.”
Crook commented that Emery County is the only county that has career service employees at every level.
Editors note: At this point in the meeting I asked what had changed. If the changes were recommended and rejected, then what happened between September and June to change the county commissioners opinion on career service and at will employees. Crook said he could not answer that question due to it being a personnel issue. I also objected to any closed door meetings or communications they may have been having with each other to come to this decision without it ever coming up in a public meeting.” End of quote of the June 7 meeting.
In speaking with Bolinder she pointed out areas where she thought the commissioners were not following the law or county policy. She mentioned a bill board north of Huntington, that was not being utilized according to UDOT regulations.
She said the uses of the Transient Room Tax for dispersal to events did not have the proper documentation and weren’t approved through commission meeting. She also cautioned the commissioners against signing contracts outside of public meetings and then ratifying them in commission meeting. She said she spoke with the auditors on situations she believed were being mishandled. She said she instructed the commissioners to call emergency meetings when contracts need to be signed outside the framework of a regularly scheduled public meeting. Bolinder said she sent an email message to County Attorney Mike Olsen asking if he had advised the commissioners to sign that contract. She also mentioned a bill for a sign at the Huntington Ball complex that had to be paid for after the project had closed.
Bolinder said, “It was a lot of little things and I think they were tired of listening to me. I’ve always tried to do my job to the best of my abilities. I worked with the commissioners as they came into office to get them acquainted with how things were done. I really think Ethan, (Commissioner Migliori) didn’t think he had to listen to his secretary.”
“I learned later after my termination that I’d been put on administrative leave. The pay period ended on June 3 and I was terminated on June 2. I filed a grievance and six months later in November was granted a hearing. A week before the Career Service Council hearing. I was offered a settlement agreement and release package. It was $21,532.80 for back wages and the balance was for insurance totaling $30,189.86. Techanically I was never offered a severence package. During the six months when I didn’t have any insurance or any income coming in, I received unemployment. If I had accepted the settlement package at that time, six months later, I would have had to pay the unemployment back and I wasn’t in a position to do that. If I had been offered that in June when I was kicked out the door, I would have taken it, but I was offered nothing.
“I wish if they were having a problem with me, they would have called me in and talked to me. There’s a personnel policy in place where an employee should have an informal discussion, oral warning, written warning, suspension, demotion, then dismissal if issues aren’t resolved. I wasn’t given any of that. They changed the classification of my position. They couldn’t fire me. I didn’t have any write-ups in my file or any prior personnel issues or problems.
“I didn’t feel I’d been treated fairly with the Career Service Council hearing. I believe there were improprieties. The witnesses weren’t sworn in and several of my witnesses were blocked from testifying. In the Career Service findings it said that ‘Commissioner Migliori did show animosity towards Bolinder. They stated that Bolinder lecturing him on his obligations under the open and public meeting act was not her place but should be the county attorney advising him.’
“One of the Career Service Council members Randy Jensen resigned his position. The County filed in District Court to disqualify him. Randy filed a GRAMA requesting information on a county audit and Crook’s invoices and he questioned the procedure the county attorney had written for the Career Council. It took six months before I had a hearing and Randy did not want to see that pushed back. The County Attorney authored a set of rules for the Career Service Council to address. We went through all of his rules.
“We fought off motion after motion to get the county to discuss settlement. The Career Service Council said this personnel matter would be a good one for mediation.
“We filed an appeal of the Career Service Council’s findings.
“When UCIP got involved they filed in federal court. Their attorney Jesse Trentadue was assigned to the case. The county pays into a litigation pool. Trentadue had my case removed from the district court and into the federal court. So now the case could not be heard in Emery County. Then they filed a motion to move the appeal of the Career Service Hearing back to district court but the federal judge ruled to keep the lawsuit in federal court.
“My attorney Austin Egan from Stavros Law reached out and asked again if the county would discuss settlement. Their lawyer said he would check with his clients, (Emery County Attorney and commissioners) and the clients said they would mediate. In the mediation Commissioner Lynn Sitterud and Commissioner Paul Cowley were there and County Attorney Mike Olsen and the UCIP lawyer, Jesse Trentadue. The mediation hearing was heard by Magistrate Brook Wells. We were in separate rooms and the mediators went back and forth talking to us and to them. It went on for three hours and we settled for $75,000.
“It’s an adequate end. It’s been a nightmare. I can use that money to buy my retirement. I was two and a half years from retirement when this happened. I would like to put it behind me and move on. I was just devastated after 27 years of service to be kicked out the door. We don’t treat Emery County people that way. My family has suffered and now we can move on. I think the citizens in our county need to get more involved and learn more about government and our elected officials. We can’t just sit back and hope they are doing the right thing. Commissioners need to leave their personal agenda out of government. They need to be held accountable. If you say too much they want to get rid of you. It’s ironic. I applied for one of those three part-time private secretary positions and I wasn’t hired. My rejection letter said, ‘While you have some very good qualities we’ve selected another candidate.’
“This quote from Abraham Lincoln helped me through this ordeal. He said, ‘Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character give him power.’ I relied on that a lot,” said Bolinder.
Expense reports for the hire of outside counsel to litigate the Bolinder matter from 2016 to the end of 2017 totaled $46,903.34. Career Service attorney fees totaled at $15,224.60 from 9-26-2016-3-23-17. These monies came from the special counsel budget. Fees incurred in 2018 and the settlement sum of $75,000 will be paid by the county’s insurance. Premiums into this insurance pool come from county monies.
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