County Notes: ‘Get Cubbison’ Backfires

The highlight of Tuesday morning's discussion of the Board's attempt to blame Auditor-Controller-Tax Collector Chamise Cubbison for financial reporting delays was when Chief Deputy Auditor Controller Kiki DeLong came to the podium and bluntly told the Board what lots of outside observers already know — not that the Board was listening, of course.

The Agenda Item had attempted to pigeon hole the County’s relatively new Auditor-Controller-Tax Collector:

“Discussion and Possible Action Including Direction for Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector to Provide an Update on the Status of Fiscal Year End 2021/22 Close, Schedule of School District Audits, Quarter 1 Close, and Other Topics as Seen Necessary for Ensuring Continued Governmental Operations.”

Ms. Cubbison explained that the closeout of last fiscal year (which ended on June 30) is still not complete because of staff shortages in her office and incomplete, late, or inaccurate financial paperwork from the various departments and the CEO. The Board, primarily Supervisor Ted Williams, then peppered Cubbison demanding to know what she needed to speed up the process, but never asking their CEO Darcie Antle what she was doing about the problem. Cubbison said it would be nice if they’d stop dragging their feet about hiring a senior financial analyst and maybe require that the CEO vet the info from the departments before handing it over to the Auditor with avoidable errors and omissions.

Then Ms. DeLong stepped up.

DeLong: “It is really painful for our office to watch these board meetings. It strikes me as somewhat hypocritical, the way you address Chamise [Cubbison] specifically with regard to wanting her to name the departments that she is asking for a little bit more support from and analysis before sending materials to her for input. Against her will, she named the CEO's office, asking that they review the materials a little more. Then you took her to task for getting personal and having a personality conflict, maybe being difficult to work with. It's really obvious to our department that the agenda here is to see her fail. You pay lipservice to trying to provide support, but she is basically being used as a scapegoat. You basically blew up our two offices by forcing this consolidation against both offices' will; Against Schari [Schapmire who retired early saying she couldn’t work with “this board” anymore] and Julie [Forrester who just quit] and Chamise and Lloyd [Weer, former Auditor Controller, now retired] and several of the community members speaking out against this. They were not just against it, they just wanted a plan to be in place — until you did a study, not just because they did it in Sonoma County which is close to the Bay Area and has access to employees. You said, We can just do it! There was no study to see if there would be any savings or efficiencies for our county. There was no action plan. You just took her to task for not having an organization chart! You need to take care of this stuff. Because you basically blew everything up and created this urgency ordinance to appoint her to clean up your mess and now you can blame her for everything that's not being done through the departments? No! That's not how it works. We all have to work together. ... There is just this stonewalling of our department from the board, from the Executive office. It is getting really frustrating. We are all working very hard to try to carry the load of not having enough staff and not enough hours. And when we watch these board meetings and see the two-facedness where you seem to be wanting to support us, but then you take every opportunity to make Chamise your scapegoat. It makes us all want to just take a vacation — which I have not done. I have not used any vacation since becoming an employee of Mendocino County four years ago. Because we have always been understaffed, and it's not because the positions are not there. It's because you can't attract people to this area, this market. It takes so long to fill a position. From the time applicants apply before you get around to calling them in they have already accepted an industry position. Industry fills these positions in 21 days. Government fills the positions in two months or more. That has to change. If we need to get butts in seats and get work done, we need to be able to hire people quickly and competitively. That is not going on right now. We have a lot of empty desks and we have a lot of people trying to do two jobs. I don't like watching these board meetings. It makes me want to just quit. I stay out of respect for Chamise. But I do not feel support from the board. The board blew up our offices and now you are not happy because you are not getting things in a timely manner. Maybe you should've thought about that before your legacy went forward. You have no plan. You drove away our Treasurer Tax Collector. You drove away our Assistant Treasurer Tax Collector. And then you appointed Chamise and made her responsible for everything. She was not the previous Auditor Controller. She was brought in to take care of that job, and Schari's job and Julie's job. You did not appoint her when Lloyd left last year so she was not able to hire an Assistant Auditor Controller. She was doing Lloyd's job and her job last year. And now she doing Julie's job and Schari's job? And now you are whining about what's not being done? You created this mess. And I -- I've said my piece. I'm done.”

Supervisor McGourty didn't get it at all. Instead of acknowledging the correctness of Ms. DeLong's complaint and admitting the Board needed to deliver on their empty promises of support, McGourty didn’t budge: “I know people are not happy. But we made a decision and we are moving forward. We cannot dwell on the past. This board has been pretty supportive and we are looking for solutions and for things to work. I think we're trying really really hard [McGourty’s repeatedly insists that he and his colleagues are “working really really hard” as if saying it itself was hard work] to accommodate what needs to be done. I realize things don't always go the way people want and things don't work the way we want them to. But we've made a decision and were moving forward with it. Now it's time to figure out how to make it work. And that's what we're going to do. We are not going to dwell on the past.”

DeLong: “If you had come up with a plan and there was a transition plan, things would have been a lot smoother. If you'd got employee buy-in… If you had got cooperation… If you had taken time to do it correctly… we would not be in this position we are in right now. We have a desperate lack of people in these two departments. I just would like to see the Board of Supervisors be a little more respectful when they address my boss about what they are not getting. Because the reason they are not getting stuff is because of your direct action in trying to combine these two departments without a plan in place, without a transition plan.”

Supervisor Ted Williams agreed about hiring delays but had no idea how to fix it. Then he denied that the officers were even consolidated: “We just decided there would be one elected department head instead of two. The board did not dictate that those offices had to be combined in any way.” Williams cited pension errors, the health plan deficit not being identified sooner, none of which the consolidation addresses nor which the office’s organization had anything to do with. 

Williams then said that he thought the problem was the Auditor-Controller's office for somehow not getting with the program. It reminded us of that Sam Goldwyn line: “Consensus is when everybody agrees with me.” “We have to get through the transition,” insisted Williams. We need a more professional financial plan. It's not to say that the employees have not been professional, but it needs to work in concert with the Executive Office, with the Board of Supervisors. We have not had that arrangement.”

Supervisor Gjerde opened his response by saying that he “did not catch the speaker's name” then proceeded, not bothering to find out, into his irrelevant response. Demonstrating yet again how detached the supervisors are from the their senior staff, Gjerde, who has been phoning it in on Zoom from Fort Bragg since the Board chambers were opened in August, has no idea who his own Chief Deputy Auditor Controller is, in a department they all seem to think is important. Gjerde said that because previous board's had jabbered about the possibility of consolidation in the past but had delayed it because the department heads were running for re-election, and therefore, according to Gjerde, the Department — not the Board — should have been better prepared for their ill-advised forced reorganization.

The Board finds itself in a downward spiral of its own making. They've gone years and years without requiring basic monthly financial reporting from their CEO. They've delayed even modest pay raises or cost of living adjustments, making it hard to hire staff, which has made it harder for departments and the Auditor to stay current on finances. They imposed a new structure on their financial offices for the wrong reasons and without a plan. Now they wonder why financial information is slow to reach them from the departments and the Auditor and the CEO? Then they claim that they can't offer raises because they don't have the necessary financial information, which in turn makes it harder to hire staff…. 

What’s that flapping noise? Chickens returning to their roost?

Former County Senior Auditor Staffer Norm Thurston Asks:

“I would like to know: From where is this animus against the Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax Collector originating? Knowing the origin may provide some insight about the motives behind it. But from what I can see, the Board of Supervisors has failed to adequately justify their actions. And their actions may have happened in the past, but the consequences of those actions continues haunt them.”

Mark Scaramella Replies:

We’re into some serious tea-leaf reading here. But here are some tentative observations based on watching the Supes pretty closely for quite some time.

CEO Angelo once told the Board that she, and she alone, managed the budget by keeping a firm lid on hiring and vacancies. The weak boards during her time as CEO were mostly happy with that because it meant they could jabber about other stuff and not worry much about the budget. Angelo then used the vacancies as a de facto slush fund, without any concern for whether work got done, and at the end of each year she balanced the budget with the unspent staff money and put whatever was left over into “reserves” which she liked to brag about.

After Angelo’s retirement a snowball of events brought the situation to a head. 

Auditor Lloyd Weer retired. 

Ms. Cubbison was denied the “Interim” Auditor position because of some petty gripes from the DA in response to which Cubbison pushed back. Instead of simply promoting Cubbison because the DA’s gripes were minor, the Board punted and started the consolidation process of merging the Auditor with the Tax Collector, a crazy idea to begin with because it’s unwise to put the same person in charge of revenues and expenses. 

Relations between Cubbison and the Board became strained and the Board chose the path of least resistance in the wake of Angelo’s retirement by trying to hold Cubbison responsible for the Board’s own negligence in not requiring financial reporting under the Angelo regime.

Added to that was a perfect storm of complications which exacerbated and intensified the problems created by the historic lack of financial reporting. 

A new property tax system was installed with time-consuming implementation problems.

Covid

Abnormally high inflation.

Employee contracts expiring. 

A new CEO.

Several inexperienced and irresponsible new supervisors.

Resignations and retirements from the Auditor and Tax Collector offices.

Unplanned, accelerated and unjustified consolidation of Financial Offices and election of Cubbison as combo Auditor-Controller-Tax Collector-Treasurer.

These developments were in addition to many underlying, unattended-to pre-existing problems like local housing limitations, hiring delays, uncompetitive salaries, on top of Angelo’s carefully engineered long-standing staff shortages and vacancies. 

These expanding problems would have been challenging for even a competent and cooperative management team. But instead the Board got off on the wrong foot with Ms. Cubbison, creating a superficial and childish need to try to blame her for the financial shortcomings which have put the Board on the spot with their employees as months and months of delay go by, in turn putting the Board under more pressure from employees and outside agencies. 

But, lead by Williams and Gjerde who continue to insist that they bear no responsibility for the rift between the Board and Cubbison, the Board continues to try shift the blame to Cubbison who, correctly, refuses to accept it.

Unless Williams and Gjerde and McGourty stop pestering Cubbison about problems that she bears no responsibility for, this situation is not likely to improve. 

At the moment we’re supposed to get some very belated budget carryover info at the end of this month when last Fiscal year’s books close (five months after the fiscal year ended). If, as the union suspects, the systemic vacancies have created any budget cushion, the problem might ebb some. But if there’s no/not enough cushion, no COLA, no new employee contracts with somewhat competitive raises, the pressure on the Board will increase and, if history is any guide, the “Get Cubbison” tendency will only worsen. 

County Uses American Rescue Plan Funds As Employee Contract Bargaining Leverage; won’t release nominal federal fund “stipends” unless employees withdraw COLA & raise requests.

From The November 1, CEO Report:

“As of September 30, 2022, the County has fully allocated the ARPA funding. The Board has allocated the remaining funds towards Employee Stipends and related benefit costs. The stipends will be paid out as bargaining units close negotiations. As of October 2022, two of the eight bargaining units have closed and employees in those bargaining units have received their stipend.”

Mendo’s Top Sheriff’s Officers accept no-raise arrangement — for now. But…

“Memorandum of Understanding July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2023. County of Mendocino and the Mendocino Law Enforcement Management Association (MCLEMA)— Hold on Across-the-Board Wage Adjustment. In view of the current economic uncertainties, there will be no across the board wage adjustments during the term of this MOU. During FY 22-23, the parties will continue to meet and confer on changes to the health plan to ensure its fiscal solvency, any compaction and alignment issues resulting from the changes made as a result of implementation of the Koff study, and such other non-economic issues as the parties mutually agree. The parties will also meet quarterly to discuss the County’s economic condition and steps being taken to address the County’s current economic challenges.” 

However, there’s also a side letter that says that if the County grants a wage increase to any other bargaining unit, they MCLEMA will get the same in a “me too” agreement.

Consent Item on next week’s agenda Item 3f) “Approval of Agreement with Renne Public Law Group in the Amount of $150,000 for Internal Investigations and Settlement of Pending Litigation for Mendocino County, Effective Upon Signing Through June 30, 2023.” 

Services: Advice CEO and HR on employment conditions, employer-employee relations and internal investigations. Provide legal advice and representation for the Sheriff’s case against the County. (Nothing in attachment about settlement of the “pending litigation,” however.)