County clarifies contract conditions

County clarifies contract conditions

Robertson: ‘ I don’t want it to look like we are giving preference to an employee’

news@theeveningtimes.com

Crittenden County passed a measure adding an extra safeguard clarifying its policy of when the county is allowed to do business with elected officials or county employees in response to a warning by state auditors.

Auditors noted that the county awarded contracts to County Treasurer Charlie Suiter, whose family owns a construction business and were the low bidder on a few minor construction jobs in 2015-2017.

State law allows counties to do business with officials and employees as long as there are unusual circumstances.

Crittenden County already has an ordinance in place addressing that, but auditors threatened to write the county up if they did not specify why Suiter was given the contracts.

“This was the recommendation of the auditors,” said County Judge Woody Wheeless. “This is just making sure we have something in place so the public knows we are being transparent.’ County Attorney Joe Rogers told the justices that the county adopted an ordinance around 2006 that defined what constitutes an unusual circumstance that would allow the county to do business with officials or employees.

The ordinance allows awarding a contract to an official or employee if the county can’t get the service anywhere else; if it can’t be obtained in a timely manner; or if the service can be obtained for a lesser cost.

Rogers said auditors found the ordinance to be vague and advised them to amend it to reflect that the quorum court reviewed each instance where Suiter was awarded a contract and gave its approval.

Rogers suggested the county add to the unusual circumstances definition provisions to here an elected official or employee is more familiar with the needs and requirements of the county and that the county would save money or time if they were obtained from a county official or employee.

“They’re not major,” Rogers said. “It’s just something to clarify the issue.”

Justice Vickie Robertson said she doesn’t see a need to amend the ordinance.

“If you’ve got the lowest bid, shouldn’t it be covered?” Robertson asked.

Robertson said she would hate to see the county write an ordinance giving an elected official the upper hand just because they work in the courthouse and are more familiar with the work than other citizens.

“I’m not thinking about Charlie in particular,” Robertson said. “In the past, we’ve just written in whoever had the lowest bid. I don’t want it to look like we are giving preference to an employee.”

Justice Stacy Allen complained that the ordinance wasn’t included in their monthly information packet and questioned the rush to pass it.

“It kind of puts us in a bind to rush to pass it,” Allen said. “It’s not to knock Charlie. I’m just looking at it from an ethical point. Is it right or wrong?

We know what’s going on.

But the public doesn’t.

Even if I had a business, me personally, I wouldn’t try to do business with the county.”

Justice Hubert Bass, who is a member of the building committee, said the committee scrutinizes all of the bids before they even get to the full Quorum Court, and pointed out that in many cases Suiter Construction did not win the bid.

“I can attest to that,” Bass said. “It’s never been preferential — at least from what I have seen. Any time Mr. Suiter brought in a bid it was thoroughly vetted and discussed. There have been more times than once that we did not accept his bid.”

Rogers said although the county’s ordinance lists the conditions where an elected officials or employee can do business with the county, adding the new circumstance would serve as a catch-all and satisfy the auditors.

“It’s not carte blanche,” Rogers said. “We are adding one here that would allow the quorum court if it saw fit in a specific instance to do business with a county official like if they felt it would save time or money.”

Wheeless said he would still have to sign an affidavit stating that Suiter was the low bidder, the scope of the work to be done, and that it was approved by the Quorum Court.

“And the affidavit would say that we chose Suiter Construction because it would save us X amount of dollars,” Wheeless said.

“Isn’t that already in the ordinance?” Robertson asked.

“According to the auditors, it isn’t” Wheeless responded.

Bass asked what would happen to the county if they didn’t agree to amend the ordinance.

“Do we get a fine?” Bass inquired.

Wheeless said the county won’t be fined if they ignore

the auditor’s recommendation. However, eventually

he would have to answer to the state legislature about why they did not comply.

“It’s not a fine,” Wheeless said. “It’s just not good for our county. We don’t want to keep getting written up for the same thing because they will make me go to Little Rock and explain to them why we are doing it this way.”

Wheeless said he argued with the auditors about the write up, but was told to change it.

“We thought we were doing it by the law,” Wheeless said. “But they were concerned it was vague. So I would rather us have an ordinance.”

Suiter agreed.

“We do it this way in the Quorum Court anyway,” Suiter said. “But I just wanted an ordinance to reflect that everything has been done aboveboard.”

Wheeless added that the auditors told him they will not write the county up if they pass an amended ordinance by year’s end.

“We are going to get written up for if it we don’t,” Wheeless said.

The Quorum Court voted in favor of the revised language

and to reflect the fact

that the justices had reviewed all past jobs by Suiter and authorized the county to contract with Suiter Construction.

“They asked us to clean up what we have done in the past and to approve the prior contracts,” Wheeless said.

By Mark Randall