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EDITOR'S NOTE : This letter has been edited to remove personal information about individuals unrelated to the issues in the county's audit of the airport. To: Burke M. Raymond, County Administrator From: Craig L. Baldwin Response to Airport Investigation of July 15, 1999 Date: July 21, 1999 I have had the opportunity to read the report submitted by Debbie Taylor concerning the airport investigation, including the complaints, findings, and recommendations. I believe that Debbie and Bobbie did a terrific job with the review, and I agree with the recommendations, and intend to fully comply. I can only say that I apologize for putting the County into this situation, and intend to correct these issues as soon as possible. I would like to take a moment and clarify one point, which is the one concerning Misuse of Time, in dealing with Kim Stearns' hours. I handle the payroll for the department, and take responsibility if anything was misunderstood. I will however say that Kim has earned every hour she has been paid, as has any other staff member at the airport. According to the findings, there are two main issues with Kim's hours. The first concerns documentation. On many occasions, Mr. Case has asked me if we were keeping documentation concerning Kim's hours, and I have assured him we were, and I firmly believed that we had adequate documentation. While I, and Kim, understood our method of tracking, I understand that it is not clear to an outside reader. Our daily time sheets show actual hours worked by the employees on each particular day, and Kim's comp hours are tracked off these daily log sheets. Based on the recommendations of the investigation, we have now implemented a new tracking system for these hours, which will allow for an outside reviewer to clearly see where employee comp hours are at any given time. We have also begun to indicate projects that staff were working on for any hours before/after regular business hours, so as to be able to justify the extra hours. I believe these changes will be a great benefit in clearly verifying work hours. The second issue I believe is how the hours were paid. When I started at the airport in 1995, my predecessor had already left and I was trained on payroll by Dawn Neff. During that period, I had many questions about the procedures, and as there was no formal training, I would seek out answers from payroll personnel and others. One question I had early on was how to account for compensation time on the payroll records. The question at the time pertained to management, and I have recently learned that how I have been doing it is incorrect. At the time of my question, I was instructed to treat compensation time as regular time worked, as compensation time did not exist. Therefore, from that period onward, I did log compensation time as regular hours worked for staff. Naturally, when Kim started working for the County, and we worked out a flexible schedule, I continued logging her compensation time as regular time worked. Because of this, when Kim took time off for her brother's funeral, the daily log sheets did not show any hours worked, but the payroll records did. We utilized the compensation hours she had built up working at the air show the previous weekend, the balloon rally, and the fair to cover the time off, and again, based on my understanding at that time, I entered the hours as regular hours in the computer. I was not attempting to cover anything, but simply was doing payroll the way I understood it. I have since learned that you can enter compensation hours in the payroll records for OPEU members, and since that time, we now show employee hours as a combination of regular hours and compensation hours. In reviewing this with County personnel yesterday and today, I have further learned that managers should be using what is called excused time. Effective immediately, when a manager is out per the administrative policy, it will be shown as excused time on the payroll records. As for the comp hours of union employees, I began showing this correctly back in May when I learned I was doing it incorrectly. I also understood from your comments that the complainant felt there was a favoritism shown to certain individuals. In response to that, I would like to say that I have always strived to be consistent when it comes to employee issues. Just as we worked with Kim to allow time off for her brother's funeral, we worked with human resources to allow additional time off, beyond the 12 week family medical leave, for Tony Albert. We have also worked out a flex schedule for Dawn Neff when she needed time off following a surgery, and had no sick or vacation time on the books. One thing that I have learned through all of this is that appearance is everything. By this I mean that even though you know you are doing a project during your lunch hour or a break, others cannot determine if that is the case, and that it is impossible to prove, and therefore, this will no longer be an issue. I will also ensure that all employees take their lunch breaks as required. Thank you for the opportunity to respond to the report. I certainly understand after reading the report how this whole thing looks to the County, and I am extremely sorry for any of my actions that have aided in placing the County in this predicament, and I stand ready to accept responsibility. I would like to ask that prior to a decision for disciplinary action being decided, that the above information be taken into account. Again, I apologize that the County was put into this situation, and give you my word that I will work to correct whatever I can immediately. I do appreciate the County and the way it operates. I also want to assure you that I have no hard feelings towards the complaint, as they were only reporting what they believed. Thank you again for the opportunity to respond to the report. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA