DSS head placed on paid investigative leave

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Commissioners vote 3-2 to place Ross on leave through Aug. 24

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BAKERSVILLE — Mitchell County Department of Social Services Director Sara Ross has been placed under paid investigative leave until Monday, Aug. 24.

In the first part of the open DSS session during the regular meeting of the Mitchell County Commissioners on Monday, Aug. 3, Ross was  confronted about possible contracts with an outside IT company and possibly violating county personnel policy by providing DSS employees with an extra paid leave day during the Independence Day holiday.

The board then went into closed session for an hour and a half. When they returned to open session, Commissioner Matthew “Vern” Grindstaff put forth the motion to place the director on paid investigative status.

“As this board is aware after the discussions tonight, there is great concern as to some actions taken at the Department of DSS, specifically by the director in regards to IT contracts being negotiated, being signed, not being signed,” Grindstaff said. “There is great concern as far as violation of personnel policy giving employees a day off that’s not in the county personnel policy.”

The board approved the motion and placed Ross under paid investigation status in a 3-2 vote, with Commissioners Grindstaff, Jeff Harding and Steve Pitman voting for and Jacob Willis and Danny Burleson voting against.

In the open session prior to the approved motion, much of the conversation centered around the department’s search for IT support which was addressed in the motion to place the director on paid investigative status.

At last month’s regular DSS session on July 16, DSS employee Tammy Hopson represented Ross and presented her findings regarding IT support. In that meeting, Hopson explained Ross had gathered quotes from three IT service providers including BCTI, the company the county contracts, and Appalachian Network Services, an IT company based in Fletcher.

Hopson explained Ross had deemed Appalachian Network Services as the best financial option for DSS. Ross also provided numbers in which she said the hourly rate for BCTI was $636 per hour.

County Manager Tim Greene said the hourly rate under the county’s contract with BCTI was $119 per hour, not $636 per hour as Ross claimed. Greene added he had explained to Ross the county uses BCTI and he would not approve of two IT service providers having access to the county’s servers via email.

In the most recent meeting, Greene read an email Ross sent him on an undisclosed date.

“‘BCTI does not offer the security scans required by the state,’ which they can do that,” Greene said, reading her email. “‘We posted a request for proposal for 10 days, talked with BCTI to assess our capacity and price and have already moved forward with a vendor that is far cheaper and meets required state standards. It’s a local firm and they took over the network yesterday.’ That’s your email.”

Ross explained that what she meant in the email was the firm came and assessed the network. Grindstaff asked why she used the words “took over” if she meant they allowed them to “look at it.”

“Looking at the network and taking over the network are two totally different things,” Grindstaff said. “Assessing a network is not taking a network over. So, when the manager showed me that email it was like you were saying case closed, this is a done deal. I would think most people would interpret that email to mean that.”

Greene then read his email reply to Ross.

“I responded back and said, ‘This is not a valid contract. You cannot use another firm to manage the network, email, computers other than BCTI,’” Greene said, reading his response email. “‘You can purchase a block of hours with them and if you want to hire an individual to be on site, like Ms. Craigo. You can do that as long as you stay within budget parameters.’”

The commissioners said they would like DSS to move forward with BCTI and have the county buy several blocks of hours that would be allocated to the department, but no formal motion was made.

Grindstaff reminded Ross that DSS is an entity of Mitchell County and said he was discouraged to see DSS not working with the county manager and county finance officer.

“We function as a county government, with a county manager who is in charge of daily operations of this county,” he said. “Department heads can’t just run rogue and do whatever they want to do without proper procedure.”

Grindstaff reinforced this point by saying the department is “not on an island” with the authority to decide budgetary items outside of their normal operating budget.

In reply, Ross said she did not believe this IT service contract was outside of the approved budget and said she was just “attempting to maintain under our budget that’s been approved.”

Grindstaff also questioned Ross regarding an extra paid leave day during the Independence Day Holiday. Ross said the department used its annually allotted “admin day”, which would usually be used for a company retreat, as an extra day off.

Ross said she gave half of the staff the day before the Fourth of July off, and gave the other half the day after the Fourth of July off. She said she informed the county manager and human resources about this and Greene acknowledged he had received this information.

The approved motion which put Ross on paid investigation status entails County Manager Tim Greene and another present or former county employee to conduct an investigation and examine six items.

Some of these items include examining contracts, purchase orders, statements of charges, money owed or paid, correspondence and other documents between Mitchell County DSS and IT providers, including Appalachian Network Services. They will also interview and question employees of DSS about any knowledge they have about the IT service providers.

Additionally, they will examine the department’s payroll records for the month of July to determine if any DSS employees were given holiday leave or pay for the regular workdays of either July 2 or July 6 in addition to the holiday pay for July 3.

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CORRECTION: A previous version of this article said Tammy Hopson had said BCTI would be unable to do the security scans required by the state. This was incorrect. Hopson did not make a comment regarding BCTI's ability to do security scans. In an email read by County Manager Tim Greene quoted in the article, Director Sara Ross stated that BCTI could not do the scans.