Norman email came in defense of holding checks

Baldwin: Reprimand came for after hours email use, not its content

A chain of emails that prompted former Aragon City Clerk Sandy Norman to type up a defense of her actions after hours and got her a written reprimand for personnel file shed light on additional information about the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's look into former clerk Lori Dunn's actions on the job, or lack thereof.

In fact, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation stated that until the City of Aragon has finished getting information together of their own, they haven't begun any work other than preliminary conversations.

Georgia Bureau of Investigation's Greg Ramey, who is supervisor over the Calhoun office, said the investigation was still in the preliminary stages and that they would only begin their look once more information was provided to them.

Norman confirmed that earlier this year she and former council member Tammy Mulkey sat down with the GBI for an interview about the issue, but wouldn't comment further since she had no personal knowledge of whether the investigation is open or not.

That investigation is the reason why Norman sent the after hours email, in defense of her actions involving more than $ 11,000 in checks that were found after Dunn resigned in a filing cabinet following her departure, according to a letter provided by Baldwin. Those checks dated as far back as 2003, according to information pro- vided by the city and in a final tally provided by officials there was $ 17,694.73 in money that wasn't deposited in the bank as of July 26.

Baldwin said the first round of checks was actually a little less than $11,000 after he took a further look into the issue after he also learned about the discrepancy between his figures in a July 24 letter explaining the issue, and those released by the city.

He explained that he had previously knew about less than $11,000 in checks when he was

first presented with the issue in late May, but that additional payments to the city that were unopened were turned over by Norman with the checks Baldwin knew about when the GBI said they weren't needed for any investigatory purposes.

Norman and court clerk Amy Liggons at the time made copies of all the checks that had been turned over, Baldwin said.

"It's mostly all small checks, except for one made out to the City of Aragon from the State of Georgia Department of Community Affairs from 2003 for $4,000," Baldwin said.

The city received a communication back from the state the $4,000 check was previously paid out to the city, but that investigatory work was still being done to figure out if that was the case since records were lacking on the reissuance of payment. Baldwin also said he hadn't seen the checks and money orders himself personally.

One of those checks included in the 171 found in the drawer was for Baldwin's payment on garbage service, totaling $13.50.

A May 30 email sent at 7:26 p.m. explained Norman's part in holding onto the checks, which she later turned over to be processed.

"In order to defend myself, I can only say that I was doing what I was instructed to do," the email read. "I was instructed by both Tammy (Mulkey) and Zach (Burkhalter, city attorney) to hold on to the items I had. I was told by Mandy (Rowlen, GBI Investigator) to hold onto these items until the GBI was ready to do their investigation and all the information would be turned over at that point. Mandy (Rowlen) did say the un-deposited checks would probably not come into the investigation. It was not my decision to make, as to what would or would not be used as evidence. That should be left to the experts to decide, not me. I did not pick-and-choose to decide what should be considered significant evidence or trivial bookkeeping errors. As you already know, there were a significant number of checks that were later found after the GBI's meeting with Tammy (Mulkey) and I. This was what prompted Terry (Wheeler) to get involved."

It added that further questions about the issue should be sent along to Burkhalter and that "I was never told to release any information, to anyone."

Norman previously explained that she felt distressed by the situation and needed to defend herself, and knew the consequences would likely be a formal reprimand for using city email after hours.

The overtime policy had previously been put in place by Mayor Garry Baldwin after he came into office and found that a number of employees had amassed a large amount of compensatory time, which included Norman. She and others were paid out for the time, and the new policy allows for only 40 hours to accrue at a time before the employee has to take a payout or time off.

Her email came in response to an official request made by email from Baldwin at 3:59 p.m. explaining the situation in brief and the steps he was planning to take in trying to recover the funds for the city.

That only came after Rowlen sent an official response about the checks to the city following a conversation about the issue she said she had in an email with Chief Marc Riley about the checks.

According to a letter explaining the situation from Baldwin, the large bundle of checks found included one from himself to pay for garbage collection fees dating back to 2012 in the amount of $13.50.

"I was told this was part of the GBI investigation," he said in the letter.

He went on to explain that some time later, an inquiry from United Health Group addressed to Dunn asked questions about why a $923.19 check hadn't been cashed, and if potentially it had been lost.

Baldwin explained that he later inquired about the check with Norman, who showed it was received in December 2016, and that it had been turned over to Christie Langston.

He went on in the letter to explain that when he sought to find out more information about the checks, he found that it was among those that were being held by Norman that were found in a filing cabinet, and though not necessarily needed for evidence was being held as such for the time being until Norman was told to do otherwise.

Baldwin's letter stated that he sought to get the checks processed and try to recover funds where possible, and that so far the city has been able to get around $2,000 of that money into the bank. That included the check from United Health Group, he said.

"Some of them were personal checks that have time limits on them, and some of them were mon- ey orders," he said.

Additionally, the city has since sent out letters to all those who were affected by the found checks in attempts to recover funds that should have come to the city.

He added in the letter explaining what happened in this particular situation that Norman's email about the issue was clearly sent after hours, and that it was a clear violation of "my recently reminded policy of email and messaging while off the clock."

"My reprimanding her was all about the after hours email, NOT the holding and releasing of the checks, which I understand was a total misunderstanding between Sandy, The Police Chief, the GBI and our Attorney."

Baldwin said that other than the issue around the checks, he's had no involvement with the GBI investigation after he stepped back from the situation back in March, when Dunn was placed on leave when the agency was first called back into investigate.

"They don't even want me to ask about it," Baldwin said.

Since the checks were not part of the investigation, Baldwin said attempts to get them cashed have been progressing. Along with making his own back payment of the $13.50, he said one of his neighbors had also come in to make payments to cover past tax payments that hadn't been cashed by the City of Aragon.

The GBI was previously called in by former Mayor Ken Suffridge to look at issues in the city, but without completed audits Ramey said his agency wasn't willing to move forward without further information at the time.

Aragon has caught up from 2009 through 2013 on completed financials for those fiscal years, but still has some years to finish up before any further moves could be made including the end of this fiscal year in 2017.

Williamson and Sons were contracted to complete the audits and finished much of the work earlier this year in late 2015 as financial issues were being cleared up by the direction of former Financial Officer Hal Kuhn.

Thus far, according to Baldwin and Norman, no explanation as to why Dunn left the checks in the filing cabinet has been offered up.

Baldwin, who is Dunn's father, said "to be honest, no one has ever asked her."

"I didn't, because I'm supposed to recuse myself from the situation as far as the investigation goes," he said. " No one as far as I know has asked her to explain anything."