Opinion : Public Comments at Benton County Supervisor's Meeting 6/4/24

Because of the pared-down minutes that will now be given to the public courtesy of the Iowa Public Information Board's guidance, ironic isn't it, I'll attempt to transcribe as best as I can comments from the meeting as this information will no longer be part of the meeting minutes.

Sometimes it's hard to hear the full context, as with this meeting names of those speaking isn't always clear, however, they are made by residents.

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My name is Cara Martin and I'm the former Benton County VA Director. There was some email communication between the HR Director and I last week and I'd like to address those questions she had. Ms. Wilber wanted to know why I stated that I don't trust her with my confidential information. Sue, if you're so worried about what the employees think and say during the onboarding process, exit interviews and now these "stay" interviews; why wasn't I afforded the opportunity to have an exit interview? I only left two months ago, well after you had implemented those. Matter of fact; you even blocked me from even having an interview conducted with Terry as a department head, due to your allotted budget you got to spend on her services.

The short story I was told; you didn't have enough money for me to get an interview and be afforded a chance to offer my insights, concerns and opinions. Do you want to know the best part of that? My successor in the VA office was allowed to get that interview; so you didn't have money for me, but you conveniently did for her. It would seem to me that you only want to listen to the employees that have your back. If I had been afforded one of those, not one but two, opportunities to express my insights and opinions, you might not be wondering now why I make the statements I do now.

In short, I don't trust you because you have proven yourself to be an untrustworthy individual. You came into this county full throttle with some good ideas and I was initially excited to have you on board. As your time here proceeded you started to investigate the duties of other departments, you have pushed to take on duties that aren't yours, my understanding is you've attended ISAC trainings for other departments that are outside of your perview. You waste time and taxpayer dollars by sitting in every posted meeting rather than conducting your actual assigned duties, and then hire an assistant because you don't have enough time to complete your work.

You witch-hunt employees that don't agree with or stand against you, furthermore- you push for them to be terminated as we all witnessed with the IT Director. You publicly argue with and degrade our elected officials, you publicly insuated that the Sheriff's department couldn't be trusted and implemented your own policies for background checks- spending more taxpayer money of course. You consistently seek outside legal counsel as we've all witnessed with the legal bills, again, more taxpayer money. You went into the Auditor's office with a former employee under false pretenses to view, and in your words last week, "spot check" files in an effort to throw them under the bus.

You have a second job, something other employees have been fired for because it goes against the handbook, and I don't trust that you aren't conducting federal business on county time. You're out attempting to intimidate employees by taking pictures of them and members of the public, myself included just last week.

You've very clearly aligned yourself with a few of the most hated men in this county and last but not least, I feel like you are creating a toxic work environment. I feel like you could care less about how much extra taxpayer money you're costing this country because it doesn't personally affect you. You aren't a Benton County resident and as such; your office budget doesn't affect your levy rate or property taxes.

And shame on this board for constantly turning a blind eye and allowing all of this to happen without any repercussions. You've actually done the opposite; you've continued to support her, thus supporting this behavior. Employees and the public both are crying out; she is out of control with her harassment and spending and you continue to vote AYE on everything she desires, rather than taking a stand for the people that elected you and the employees that you should be protecting. There are other options rather than seconding a motion you disagree with. Does nobody here listen to their constituents anymore? If you all stay the course, you'll continue to lose good, hardworking employees in this county.

One last tidbit that I'd also like to point out- Rick, when I worked here you commonly referred to me as, "young lady". I'd like to take this opportunity to let you know that I was offended each and every time you called me this. Your tone, affliction and verbiage made me feel as though you were speaking down to me as if I were a child. I think it would behoove you to assess how this mht make some other employees feel as well before continuing to refer to them as "young lady".

For example, in my own personal opinion, you should be addressing the County Auditor as Auditor Rippel, Mrs. Rippel or Hayley; and not "young lady" as you did a few weeks ago in open session. It's degrading and insulting.

Thank you Hayley, for taking a stand for yourself, your staff, county employees and the public that you diligently serve.

And thank you Lexa, for consistently coming here to voice your concerns and opinions. Those two ladies are MY elected officials because they stand for us.

Thank you."

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Christine Hebert

We've been residents of Benton County now for 19 years, just recently retired so trying to be a little more active. I volunteer at Showers of Blessings.

I watched the meeting last week online yesterday, and I was absolutely appalled at what took place between Ms. Ripple and whomever.

As to the professionalism of this meeting, you supervisors should have stopped that. I know it's online and you're trying to do transparency but from a professional standpoint it was just, I was just going, "Wow!"

I almost applied for that HR job. I would have been very qualified for that job or at least gotten an interview, but I'm really glad I didn't now when I saw that meeting last week it's like, "whew" And I shouldn't have to feel that way not even knowing anything about Benton County but just watching the charades that happened last week... I will ask a couple of things right now.

I don't have the agenda, I didn't look at the agenda, the only one I can find online is May 7th, I mean the meeting minutes so I don't know what the repercussions were, but I'm kind of curious about this HR part-time assistant how could you have published it yet you're still arguing over that particular employment?

Was this a whole project that was rolled out when HR said we need a new software system? I've got some bullet points I'm going to read through. You have $45,000 for the software, what information will the HR software hold, only payroll information or will it have date of births, hire dates, Social Security numbers, job descriptions, pay scale, how much is the annual fee possibly be to sustain that software going forward? What job duty is going to be automated with the new HR package?

So once you automate, I was in IT for over 40 years, I love automation, I love computers, love IT, but did you consider that it was a whole project?

Any time you go from a manual system I know there's always a need for some additional input of data as you want to get up and get going, at the same time you're probably running parallel systems you have to keep the manual going for a while you have to get the new one going, what is the roll out time for that software?

Has it been purchased already?

Hayley Rippel: Nothing's been purchased.

Christine: So another thing, when you talked about the records, that part there, I was in Safety and Security EDM for 14 years, before I retired, from a security standpoint, I know it's a hard copy file. I was in Safety and Security and I had HR. We had different access to records. Some of the records are meant for HR, some are not.

Just like Mr. Cook said, I watched him last week, he said they should be divided. When we would have IDOT come in, we didn't hand them a personnel folder, we handed them only records pertaining to IDOT. When Workman's Comp was involved, Safety and Security was involved with it and once we got the medical information to HR saying, 'this is what is recommended.' They couldn't get the whole workman's comp cases.

So there are certain things and the way that happened last week was, "Okay, Tippett go move the files, from over there today." Who's going to have access to them? And once they have access to them, from a hard copy standpoint, I know they're being scanned, do you have an IT department that controls your cyber security as to who can access that? So if you've scanned these documents can I still see it? Everything was on the argument of that, so just some points that I wanted to make on that.

Rippel: With that comment, Ms. Wilber handed this out, information on personnel records, these are the payroll files that we are asking to keep as we conduct payroll, for those of you that would like copies. The board got a copy of that today as well as a copies of letters from other county auditors who have both HR and the auditor doing the same stuff.

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The gist of the remainder of the conversation is below. It can be watched here.

Sue Wilber, HR Director, kept asking for the personnel and payroll files stored in the Auditor's office.

Hayley Rippel, Benton County Auditor, presented letters from several other Iowa Auditors stating that payroll records need to stay with the auditor for payroll purposes. Rippel stated that if she needs to verify information for issuing paychecks, she needs that information.

Wilber continued to insist that the records should be in her office. Wilber claimed that ISAC lawyers say, "Best practice is..."

Benton County Attorney Ray Lough had advised that payroll should indeed stay with the Auditor.

Wilber asked which advice they would follow and that she was promised the files last week.

Doug Cook, in attendance at the meeting pressured the officials to name a date of when this would happen.

Overall, there was a lot of crosstalk between the public, HR Director Wilber, the Auditor Hayley Rippel concerning all of the above. The supervisors then responded with a date of July 1 allowing Rippel time to wrap up the election, canvas and audit of the election.

During the discussion Wilber had told Rippel that she was addressing the supervisors when Rippel tried to explain that her office (on election day) was swamped trying to run the election and there just wasn't room or time to get the files sooner.

Rippel reminded Wilber that some of what she was sharing should not be discussed in an open session, but it continued.

County Supervisor Tracy Seeman, instructed Wilber that she had been given a date of July 1 for documents. Wilber shot back that their word from last week didn't mean anything and that she would document if asked why she didn't have the documents if they were requested.

Wilber started in again. "So last week you took action..." rehashing that all records were to be delivered to her office last week.

Then both Wilber and Rippel claimed that they had been asked to see a copy of personnel records by employees.

Wilber also took the opportunity of public comment time to ask Sheriff Ron Tippett why the surplus sheriff's vehicle had not be put into county pool use. Tippett explained that the idea was to save the county money but putting an extra car into county use, when only one department would use it would not accomplish the county's intention of saving money. The one department demanding a car is HR.

Wilber wanted to know why she wasn't told when she first requested it that it wouldn't save money. Tippett had done some number crunching and determined that it would not be in the county's best interest.

Supervisor Rick Primmer said that he and Tippett would get together to discuss this.

Wilber then told the Supervisors that Sheriff Tippett had told Wilber that she would no longer be part of the hiring process for the Sheriff's department.

Wilber then said that a posting from the Sheriff's office had been listed on the county website with an incorrect link, and that she had been getting calls that the info wasn't loaded correctly and went on to discuss this, even though the Sheriff had determined that her help was not needed in the hiring process for his department.

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