Union for Jackson County jail guards takes hit from two crooked leaders and one bad decision
They say there’s no such thing as free parking, and for the union that represents Jackson County jail guards, that’s become bitter reality.
One former president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 1707 is serving time in federal prison. Another is awaiting sentencing.
And the union they headed, which was once flush with cash, is now utterly broke.
And all of it stems from the Jackson County Legislature’s agreement eight years ago to underwrite with tax dollars the union’s cost of leasing a parking lot for corrections officers.
Union leaders did, indeed, use some of that money to rent a parking lot, but nearly $200,000 of parking money and union dues was stolen by the two union leaders, according to court records. One of those leaders also obligated the local to pay $134,000 for use of a parking lot that members no longer need nor have the money to pay the lease payments on.
“It’s tragic,” says Susan Barkulis, executive director of Council 72 of the union in Jefferson City. “The members elected their leadership and that leadership violated their trust, not once, but twice.”
Corrections officers at the Jackson County Detention Center have gotten a whole lot more public attention in the past year than they have in the past decade or two, and most of it bad.
Last July, a former guard was indicted on federal civil rights charges and is now awaiting trial for allegedly abusing an inmate several years ago. The FBI is investigating other instances of alleged physical abuse of prisoners that were revealed last summer.
As a result of that probe, then-County Executive Mike Sanders created a task force to study working conditions at the detention center. The task force report concluded that guards were underpaid and overworked — subject to burnout due to excessive overtime they were forced to work because of high turnover.
On the plus side, that has led to pay raises and other reforms aimed at making the center a better and safer place to work.
But the union’s ability to keep pressing for more change has been undermined by its financial difficulties.
It’s a cautionary tale for any organization whose members place too much trust in leaders without providing enough oversight, says Roger Levings, a union business representative at Council 72 who aids Local 1707 in its dealing with Jackson County.
“There’s the old saying,” Levings says. “ ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.’ ”
Accounts looted
The story begins in 2008 when Local 1707’s president at the time, Jesse Morgan, scored a rare win at the bargaining table.
The wages paid Jackson County guards were notoriously low and weren’t getting much better under the new contract. But the new contract did provide the detention center’s 200 or so guards with a new parking stipend.
Previously, guards had to fend for themselves, parking on the street or finding spaces in pay lots.
Under the new contract, the county agreed to pay the union a quarterly fee, based on the number of employees. It was then up to the local to arrange to rent a parking lot close to the jail with that money.
That turned out to be a very good deal because the union was able to rent that lot for much less than the county was paying it.
Jackson County court records show the union was renting the lot for $4,325 a month, while county payment ranged from $6,000 to nearly $8,000 a month, federal criminal court records show.
As a result, Local 1707’s bank accounts began to grow.
And within months, federal prosecutors alleged, Morgan began dipping into the parking money and union dues to finance a four-year personal spending spree.
He paid his divorce lawyer with union funds, the feds alleged, wrote checks to the girlfriend who later became his wife and made payments on his timeshare vacation account.
Morgan skimmed parking and dues money to pay his utility bills and make tax payments to Jackson County. The government says he withdrew more than $100,000 from union accounts through ATMs and counter checks.
In all, he stole $185,000, the district attorney alleged, but Morgan admitted to less as part of the plea bargain.
Now 40, Morgan is at the medium-security correctional institution in Memphis, Tenn., according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and was ordered by a judge to begin paying back the $138,000 he admitted to stealing following his scheduled release on Dec. 31.
Other union officials had suspected Morgan of theft and turned him in in October 2012.
One of those officials was the vice president, Lowell Wreh, who took over as president and promised to keep tighter control over union funds.
“Then Lowell, the reform candidate, starts stealing the money,” Levings says.
Court records show that Wreh began pilfering union funds in February 2013 and continued writing himself and others checks without authorization until the following January, according to the plea agreement he signed.
Sentencing has not been set. The 46-year-old Raytown man faces a maximum 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Wreh’s theft of more than $7,000 was a pittance compared to Morgan’s. But the financial damage he did to the union was almost as costly when he signed a three-year lease extension on the parking lot that had been such an illicit gold mine for his predecessor.
It committed Local 1707 to pay the landlord $134,075 over the course of the agreement, according to a lawsuit filed by the property owners, Joseph and Julie Zwillenberg.
Had the county continued to pay the union a parking allowance, that wouldn’t have been a problem.
But within a couple of months of that lease signing, the county stopped writing the parking checks. A clause in the labor agreement allowed that.
The decision to suspend payments wasn’t because county officials had learned of Morgan’s scheme — it wouldn’t be made public for another year — but because the county leaders decided to buy a parking garage near the jail that could serve corrections officers’ needs as well as all county employees working downtown.
“The county was spending an exorbitant amount of money renting lots around downtown,” says Sanders, the former county executive.
Spending $3 million to buy the former AT&T lot at 14th and Locust streets, he says, was a better use of taxpayer dollars than continuing those agreements or constructing a parking garage.
But what Sanders considered a good move for the taxpayers was a very bad break for Local 1707.
When the union quit making lease payments in 2013, the landlord filed suit. Court-ordered garnishments against the union’s finances now total $107,000, representing past-due rent through last Feb. 15, and a judge allowed for another claim for rent through the end of the lease this past Nov. 15.
But lot co-owner Joseph Zwillenberg isn’t sure whether it would be worth paying a lawyer to seek another judgment. As it is, there’s little to no money to garnish from the union’s bank accounts these days.
“It’s disappointing,” Zwillenberg says. “Just because they have internal strife, I feel they still should have to honor their obligations.”
Levings says the local is doing the best it can to pay, but it will take years and years to pay off a lease that he advised Wreh against signing, and which needed the approval of the union board but didn’t get it.
Since then, new checks and balances have been put in place with more oversight from the state council.
As for the parking lot at the center of all this, plenty of its 79 spaces are available, Zwillenberg says. They go for $25 a month.
This story was originally published February 2, 2016 at 10:14 PM with the headline "Union for Jackson County jail guards takes hit from two crooked leaders and one bad decision."