‘Good Ol’ Boy’ system still thrives in Craighead County

So now we know the real reason why former District Court Clerk Joe Monroe resigned his post to take a fortuitous opening with the county that pays about half as much.

Craighead County District Judge David Boling accused Monroe on March 30 of improperly awarding vacation time, personal time and compensatory time to multiple deputy court clerks. When faced with the evidence Boling had uncovered, Monroe verbally offered his resignation and followed that up April 3 with a letter of resignation.

Boling turned his findings over to Arkansas Division of Legislative Audit to investigate. Like all taxpayers, we’ll be interested to find out the gory details of what auditors uncover, including Monroe’s own vacation/sick/compensatory record.

Miraculously, Monroe was hired by Craighead County Judge Ed Hill to work in the county’s road department almost immediately after resigning his post as court clerk. Hill went so far as to stop the human resources process of Monroe’s resignation, instead calling it a transfer.

Hill declined immediate comment on Boling’s claim, saying he had yet to read Boling’s letter to legislative audit.

But wouldn’t Hill question Monroe’s reasons for wanting to step down from a job that pays twice as much to operate road equipment for the county? Wouldn’t Monroe know that Hill would soon find out about Boling’s letter to legislative audit?

If he didn’t know, Hill should have investigated further before creating a job for Monroe. If he did, well, that would look really bad.

Let’s just say the good-old-boy system in Craighead County government is alive and well, thank you.

There’s been a lot of that being discovered lately as The Sun recently reported that legislative audit found massive abuse of vacation and sick leave in the 2nd Judicial District Public Defender’s Office, resulting in the firing of long-time chief public defender Bill Howard. Howard and several of his deputies had failed to report any vacation or sick leave for a dozen years or more, according to a report provided by the public defender’s commission. The audit found similar abuse statewide. It’s sickening.

It’s impossible to believe these state employees — attorneys, no less — were never sick or took a vacation during those years in question.

We suspect it’s because any vacation or sick time not taken can be banked and reimbursed to a certain limit when employees retire or resign their post.

In other words, they walk away from the job with a bag of money they may not have actually earned.

It’s become painfully obvious that vacation and sick leave are being abused in the public defender’s office and district court. We’d also like to know if that’s the case with compensatory time, when salaried employees supposedly work more than 40 hours a week and bank that time for later use or a big payout.

What’s painfully clear is that no one — with the current exception of Judge Boling and a few foxes — is watching the taxpayers’ hen house in county government.

We applaud Judge Boling for turning his findings over to legislative audit. He’s making a huge impact on district court. With Boling’s recent findings, Judge Hill should also ask legislative audit to investigate leave and comp time throughout county government.

That’s why The Sun has asked for the

accumulated vacation, sick leave and compensatory time of all county employees for the past five years.

It will be interesting to see if our elected officials and their employees are accurately following the rules or if they’re feathering their own nests at the taxpayers’ expense when they leave the county’s employment.

We look forward to publishing our findings.