On Tuesday, Auditor-Controller-Treasurer Tax Collector Chamise Cubbison told the Board that she needed access and assistance from former Acting Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector Sara Pierce to review changes and activities that occurred during the 17 months she was wrongfully suspended from her elected position. Cubbison was reinstated two months ago when Judge Moorman ruled that the misappropriation charges the DA filed against her were bogus and dismissed the case. Without such assistance Cubbison said she’d be unable to meet upcoming outside auditor filing deadlines. As far as we know, Ms. Pierce, who is now back as a Deputy CEO, has been vindictively ordered by CEO Antle to have no contact with Cubbison, who has a pending civil case against the County. At this point, said Cubbison, “I don’t know what to tell him.”
Response from Board chair John Haschak: “OK, thank you.”
Response from CEO Darcie Antle: Silence.
At least the Board is on notice that their petty refusal to work with their elected Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector on important County financial matters will be the reason that the deadlines are not met.
Referring to the County’s recently announced attempt to encourage employees to quit to save some salary expenses, retired Ukiah attorney Barry Vogel told the Board that it’s illegal in California to use taxpayer funds to pay people to resign or retire. He suggested County Counsel get an opinion from Attorney General to confirm his view. Vogel volunteered to help the County Counsel’s office if they had any question about pay-to-quit legality. Later in the meeting, Supervisor Haschak said that he thought the pay-to-quit incentive program was legal because it was borrowed from Humboldt County. His colleagues and County Counsel seemed to agree and the program will remain in place unless Vogel or some other attorney files some kind of legal action.
Later in the meeting, Supervisor Madeline Cline asked Haschak if the previous Board had gone too far in giving raises to County employees, especially disproportionately large raises to law enforcement? Obviously missing the irony of his answer in light of the current program to encourage people to quit or retire, Haschak replied that they had to give the big raises because people were quitting and “other counties were poaching our employees.”
Supervisor Ted Williams wanted to know how staff came up with the dubious [our adjective, not Williams’] projected $8 million savings that they say will close the budget gap when large numbers of employees quit or retire and are not replaced. CEO budget staffers Tony Rakes and Sara Pierce only said what they’ve said before, that somehow a 6% attrition rate magically translates to an $8 million of General Fund savings. As we have noted before, there’s no way that math works, nor is anything like it likely to occur since there’s plenty of wiggle room in the County’s “hiring freeze.” Williams said that the projected $8 million “sounds like wishful thinking.” Then Williams said that he wanted to see the specific calculation of how they arrived at the projected $8 million savings. Ms. Pierce said she’d get back to Williams.
Later in the meeting, Human Resources Director Cherie Johnson explained the calculation citing breaking the $8 million into projections for various department groupings, but noting that $5.7 million of the projected $8 million budget savings will be in “non-General Fund” departments. Yet they are projecting an $8 million General Fund savings. And they are assuming that important departments will somehow be able to continue operating without replacing vacated positions in the already low-staffed General Fund departments.
The entire discussion demonstrates how CEO Darcie Antle’s “creative” assumptions to narrowing the budget gap are mostly imaginary and will leave the County in a deficit that they have yet to face.
As an additional budget balancing move, Supervisor John Haschak proposed cutting the Board of Supervisors budget by about 6%, including reverting their salaries to the level before the last raise they gave themselves, along with eliminating various travel and education expenses.
Supervisor Mulheren said she works really, really hard and can’t afford to do whatever she’s doing, mostly attending out of county meetings with no visible benefit, if she has to pay travel expenses out of pocket from her current nearly $100k/year salary. After some discussion Haschak agreed to have staff come back at a future date with how much of the travel and education budget has been used in the past before they vote to cut their own budget.
Curiously, nobody mentioned the CEO or her staff in the budget balancing discussion.
If the CEO and the Board of Supervisors are refusing to allow Sara Pierce to work professionally and collaboratively with Chamise Cubbison to ascertain and understand what Ms. Pierce did while she was the acting Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector, one could logically surmise that the CEO and the Board of Supervisors have something to hide.
The Street says the BOS and CEO are still trying to run Ms. Cubbison out of Low Gap…
Ask around,
Laz
The buck stops with the Board of Supervisors. Non-performing elected officials should be recalled.
I assume you are speaking to recall the BOS? Good luck with that…
Laz
I think recalls could be successful in the 2nd and 5th districts. That may be enough to right the ship.
the 5th is up for a new Supe in 2026, we are hopeful of replacing the incumbent, but thats easier than a recall
We do these things “..not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” Why give him 19 more months and a chance to be re-elected?
What was Pierce doing for 17 months? How many checks did she write? For how many steak dinners? What changes were made to the investment portfolio? How much guidance was she receiving directly from the Executive Office or the Board? Why would she not be disclosing changes and activities she undertook while assuming this role? I think the answer is that it’s on advice from a lawyer.