Damning audit offers vindication, but local residents have already reshaped Clay County
For four years, Jason Withington has fought for any measure of accountability within Clay County government.
He and other residents raised serious questions about potential Missouri Sunshine Law violations, misuse of funds and misappropriation of budgets from the three-member county commission.
The complaints were so widespread that a group of residents began organizing a petition drive in 2018 to demand an audit of the county’s government from the state auditor. It received more than 9,000 signatures, including more than 60 from elected officials within the county.
Withington on Wednesday was vindicated as Missouri State Auditor Nicole Galloway issued a damning report that outlined financial abuses, irregularities in employee compensation and wasteful spending. She visited the Clay County Courthouse in Liberty to share the results of her office’s multi-year investigation, which was initiated in December 2018.
The 162-page report provides residents with an official accounting of the multitude of problems that wreaked chaos on their local government in recent years. But, as Galloway noted, the audit was only made possible by local residents, who have already reshaped and reformed the county government at the ballot box.
“Taxpayers in Clay County were fed up with being shut out from knowing what was happening with their tax dollars and they forced change in their government,” she said at a specially-called commission meeting.
Galloway credited “news media doggedness” and a multitude of whistleblowers who brought issues to the attention of her Jefferson City office. And while the report paints a dark picture of county governance, she noted that a newly-elected commission is already making changes to repair the public trust.
Her audit found that the former commission made questionable purchases with taxpayer dollars, allowed a commissioner to single-handedly spend millions of dollars in contracts and violated the Sunshine Law, among other findings. The audit rated Clay County’s overall performance as “poor” — the lowest ranking that shows it needs to “significantly improve operations.”
Galloway’s offices made multiple recommendations for improving accountability and transparency in the government. She said many of those changes have already been implemented by the new commission that has embraced reform.
Much of the blame for problems is laid at the feet of two former commissioners: Luann Ridgeway and Gene Owen — who often voted in tandem against presiding commissioner Jerry Nolte. Ridgeway and Owen could not be reached for comment Wednesday
Galloway noted that the previous commission fought the audit at every turn, lofting multiple court challenges and requiring her office to issue subpoenas for information and testimony.
“The lesson for governments at every level is that transparency will eventually prevail,” Galloway said. “You may delay the change that brings needed reforms and restores the public’s trust, but you can’t stop it.”
Residents and local officials said the audit offered them a serious lesson on democracy. On one hand, it exposed the opportunities for abuse: In Clay County, Galloway said two politicians were able to irresponsibly spend tax dollars, shut out the public and destroy the trust of constituents for years.
But the changes underway in Liberty also underscore the inherent power of the people: how ordinary residents — if they’re committed and organized enough — can effect change without ever holding a seat of power.
“Change starts at the grassroots,” Withington said. “The citizens demanded this.”
Findings of the audit
After her presentation, Galloway told reporters her office found no evidence of criminal activity.
The audit findings were welcomed by the three current county commissioners, Jerry Nolte, Megan Thompson and Jon Carpenter.
The audit found that former commission did not document decisions about a controversial annex project. Just one commissioner, Gene Owen, approved more than $12 million in contracts awarded for the project, which “resulted in a loss in transparency.” The county has also incurred at least $2.8 million in the project that “may not be recovered.”
The audit also determined county officials made questionable and potentially unnecessary purchases, including $5,000 on food for five social events. Other charges for receptions and employee appreciation events totaled $4,185.
“County officials provided no explanation of how any of the events benefited the county,” according to the audit.
The audit noted that until July 2018, Clay County employed an administrator who was in charge of day to day operations of the county. But upon Dean Brookshier’s resignation, the commission approved raises for three assistant county administrators to take over his duties. All three earned six figures and two were given rent-free housing from the city at Smithville Lake.
Galloway’s audit said the county had no policy authorizing employee housing and did not report the value of the rentals to the IRS, as the law requires.
Likewise, Clay County awarded generous severance agreements to a former county administrator and three assistant county administrators.
Those severance payments went beyond the benefits outlined in employment contracts.
“Taken together, taxpayers spent more than $600,000 on compensation on a handful of county employees after they left county employment,” Galloway said.
On Wednesday, commissioners roundly criticized actions of the previous two commissioners, who did not seek re-election in 2020.
“The results of this audit should make our previous commissioners and their overpaid cronies ashamed,” said Megan Thompson, who took office last year.
The audit said county officials began answering outstanding questions in December 2020, just a few weeks before the departure of Ridgeway and Owen, along with appointed county staff who left around the same time. The county started to withdraw legal action it had taken against the state auditor.
Moving Clay County forward
The audit made a series of recommendations for how the county should improve, including creating a housing policy if putting up county employees is necessary.
Auditors also said procedures over purchasing cards needed improvement, considering the county had not monitored monthly purchasing card limits. Some were “excessive,” the audit found.
In 2017, county expenditures from those cards totaled $950,000. They increased each year, and by 2020, had reached more than $3 million.
About 50 cards were assigned to various people. Their monthly limits ranged from $500 to $225,000, according to the audit.
The audit also made mention of a previous fight that took Clay County to court.
In 2019, then-Sheriff Paul Vescovo sued the Clay County Commission when Owen and Ridgeway voted to cut his budget, leaving him unable to pay vendors that provided food and medical care to inmates at the county jail.
Vescovo believed that the budget cuts were political payback arising from his office’s initial investigation into record tampering by an assistant county administrator. A judge later ruled that the commission had to pay nearly $1 million to restore the budget cuts.
State auditors made no recommendations about the issue since it has been resolved.
The ongoing crisis in Clay County led to the adoption of a new county constitution, which voters overwhelmingly approved in November 2020.
It will expand the three-member county commission that governs Clay County to seven members, make elected races nonpartisan and convert five elected offices, often described as ministerial positions, to appointed jobs by a county administrator.
Withington himself is running for one of the four new seats on the commission this fall.
Standing in front of a large white statue of Lady Justice, he said he was confident the changes underway would prevent such abuses from occurring in the future. But if they don’t, citizens will now have the ability to recall commissioners, he noted.
On the Liberty town square, the Clay County Courthouse, like many others, is painted with bright murals that recount local history back to the pioneer days. On the steps leading up to the county commission chamber, gold stenciled letters tell passersby that the county is only as strong as its citizens.
“The stability of a government,” it reads, “is determined by the character of its citizens.”
This story was originally published March 3, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
