Magistrate Crystal Cleveland addressed the Board of Commissioners during the July 9th meeting. She mentioned several concerns, and referenced a response to an email she had received from Commissioner Reid. Reid replied; “Your request as I understand it was to take a trip to Las Vegas at taxpayer’s expense.”
Cleveland responded; “it was for a continuing education.”
Reid replied; “we’ve already verified that you have already met your state mandated requirements for magistrate court, and as I understand it from the emails I received that was for practicing attorneys, and you are not a practicing attorney. As I understand it, you are not a member of the Georgia bar association, is that not correct?”
Cleveland replied; “I’m a member of the American bar association.”
Reid replied; “Have you passed the bar exam?”
Cleveland stated that was irrelevant.
She continued to outline the requested trip to Nevada. “There’s a judicial college in Nevada. It had to do with a conference that was a continuing education for that.”
County attorney Hayden Hooks commented. “The County policy says that out of State travel has to be approved by the board 60 days in advance.”
Cleveland disputed Hooks. “I have the O.C.G.A. that I gave you before when I filed a grievance three years ago pertaining to this happening every single year. Every single year since I’ve been in this seat, this board has approved for my budget to be cut. In fact, the first year, you all cut my budget so I could not go to a mandatory training, but I still met my requirements for the State.”
She referenced an email by County Administrator Doug Eaves claiming she was overbudget; “Did you all send an email out saying that that was a lie, and I was never overbudget, that those items were never paid for but requested to get guidance on how to proceed?”
Chairman David Baldwin replied; “We knew that he misspoke.”
Cleveland continued to detail discrepancies; “He said that I was overbudget by almost $30,000, ($28,000). I was underbudget over $40,000.” She mentioned that at the close of the budget, the last budget she had received from the finance director stated she still had $20,000 left in her budget.
Commissioner Clay Jones asked Eaves if Cleveland had been made aware of the correction. Eaves mentioned a meeting with Hayden and Cleveland, saying he explained the error; “I was looking at the original budget, not the amended budget.”
Cleveland mentioned that she had wanted to meet with the Commissioners but was denied; “I did not want to do this in front of the County, because I don’t want to dampen the morale, but it’s a race issue, because at this point, there’s no reason why each and every year since I’ve been in this seat, I’ve had to deal with this, and I’ve come to you all, I’ve gone through protocol. I even filed a grievance, and I just found out, what, two weeks ago, that nobody responded to this grievance after I followed up continuously with the county attorney, that you all weren’t going to respond because there is no grievance policy for an elected official.”
Reid questioned Cleveland: “Why did you call me a racist?”
Cleveland responded: “You always make derogatory comments, every meeting that we’ve had, you’ve made derogative comments.”
Reid stated her claim was subjective. He stated his concern was for use of taxpayer funds; “the first person I ever called out on excessive travel was Nigel Poole when he went to Savannah, paid $600 for a room, and he took Mitch Grant with him, who was a private citizen, and he wasn’t supposed to even pay for that.”
Mitch Grant responded after the meeting: “First of all, Sumter County has never paid me to go to Savannah. Second, if you look on the Sumter County web page, under CitizenCorps, you will see that I am the Director of Sumter County CitizenCorps.” He stated that the organization was under the supervision of Sumter County Emergency Management. “I am also a dues paying member of the Emergency Management Association of Georgia. The [only] money I have ever received from Sumter County is $5 per house fire that I went to as a Volunteer FireFighter for 40 years in this county.” He stated that his hotel lodging was paid for by GEMA, with meals, travel, and hotel paid out of pocket.
Baldwin commented: “We provide you with everything that the law requires us to provide you.”
Cleveland responded “I do not agree with that.”
Reid questioned why taxpayers should pay for conferences that went beyond the State mandated requirement; “Why should they make sacrifices to send you to Las Vegas?” Reid also commented on his fiscal views; “I am a steward of the taxpayer’s funds.”
Cleveland questioned why the location of the conference was relevant. “As you can see that my attendance at these meetings in person has dwindled, because I get harassed every time I come here.”
Reid responded; “That’s your opinion.”
Cleveland responded; “It’s a fact. It’s been recorded, even though most of the time you have to go into executive session.”
While Eaves conceded that Cleveland’s department was not overbudgeted as a whole, he did state she was overbudgeted on individual line items. “The legal level of control required by the State is at the departmental level.” He stated that Counties had the power to adopt a tighter level of control according to the ACG manual.
Cleveland also mentioned being shut out of the time clock. “You all wanted me to take back over the time clock, which again, was a situation where you took one person’s word and I was completely shut out from even controlling my office.”
Baldwin responded; “That wasn’t done here.”
Cleveland replied; “Yes it was.” Cleveland mentioned she was kept from controlling her staff’s leave and time. “In fact letters were delivered to my staff saying they would not be paid unless they abided by what was being told to them by the at that time County Manager.”
When asked for comment, Cleveland replied; “I don’t have any information at this time until the County provides my open records request thank you.”
Reid commented on the timeclock. “She is correct. We did deny her access, but because she was not following the policy.”
He mentioned the keypad that employees used to mark their time when they arrived at work at the magistrate’s office; “She had people coming in late, she’d just mark them as coming in at 8 o’clock and Miss Volley caught her.” Rayetta Volley was the former County Administrator.
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