PORT ANGELES — Clallam County Treasurer Selinda Barkhuis is asking commissioners to fire County Administrator Jim Jones.
She also wants them to deny an increase in next year’s revenue projections and to nix a “last minute” expenditure for new staff in the prosecuting attorney’s office.
In a Monday email to commissioners and other elected officials, Barkhuis referred to Jones’ “ridiculous revenue projections” for her department, especially a $200,000 spike in investment interest.
She said the revenue projection is “designed to provide the county administrator with false fodder to be used, no doubt, to maliciously blame me, as county treasurer, for the layoffs he will inevitably recommend when these ridiculous revenue projections fail to materialize.”
She said a “last minute $440,000 increase” for Prosecuting Attorney Mark Nichols’ office was designed to help Nichols “make good on his well-documented threats against me of ‘far-reaching professional and financial ramifications’ for my refusal to subordinate and otherwise forfeit my Washington state constitutional and county charter right to execute the authorities of the county treasurer consistent with my oath of office.
“In my opinion, this is yet another example of the county administrator abusing his authority to harass me, retaliate against me, and otherwise intrude on my office as county treasurer, all of which amounting to an utterly hostile work environment that is damaging my health and my ability to do my job,” Barkhuis wrote.
“As such, I hereby also request that each of you, as county commissioners, immediately act to terminate the county administrator’s employment contract, and I hereby put you on notice that I intend to hold ‘the county,’ as well as each of you county commissioners personally, accountable for the consequences of your failing to do so.”
Said Jones: “She appears to be complaining about the [revenue] estimate that I made at the direction of the board.”
“I’m doing the bidding of the commissioners,” Jones said in Tuesday interview.
“I want to work corroboratively, and she apparently doesn’t. That’s the biggest disappointment to me.”
Jones and Nichols said four of the new positions planned for the prosecuting attorney’s office are related to the consolidation of misdemeanor law and justice services.
Two attorneys and two staffers from the cities of Port Angeles and Sequim are joining the county to streamline efforts in Clallam County District Court No. 1 to save costs.
County commissioners and each city council recently approved agreements to consolidate misdemeanor law and justice.
A fifth new position in the prosecutor’s office is for a felony deputy who will focus on a recent spike in property and drug crime, Nichols said.
An additional half-time felony deputy was included in the draft budget.
Nichols denied that he or any deputy prosecuting attorney has threatened Barkhuis in the manner she suggested.
“To the contrary, we have been steadfast in providing the treasurer with sound legal advice,” Nichols said Tuesday.
Jones, meanwhile, said he has the “full support” of all three commissioners.
The commissioners, Budget Director Debi Cook and Jones met with each elected official and county department head — except Barkhuis — to discuss their budget requests earlier this fall.
Jones said he spoke with Barkhuis about his revenue projections last week.
“She seemed satisfied,” Jones said.
“Over the weekend, she changed her mind, I guess.”
Jones said he is projecting a $200,000 increase in the county’s investment interest income, from $300,000 to $500,000, because of expected changes in the federal interest rate.
Commissioners will hold two public hearings Dec. 1 before approving a final budget for 2016.
The $36.8 million draft budget would spend $2.7 million in general fund reserves, leaving $9.5 million in the bank.
It adds staff, pays for one-time expenditures and maintains a 40-hour workweek for employees who were previously on 37½-hour schedules.
Barkhuis in June refused to issue warrants for $1.3 million in board-approved infrastructure grants to port and city governments over perceived procedural errors.
Nichols appointed a special deputy prosecuting attorney to represent her.
Barkhuis is now urging commissioners to “scrutinize the proposed budget carefully” for substantive and procedural compliance.
County Sheriff Bill Benedict said he was surprised to see Barkhuis’ email, which he forwarded as a news release at 4:12 p.m.
“I am embarrassed for county elected officials, to see that coming from one of us out of the blue,” Benedict said later Monday.
“Nobody has seen Selinda for months coming to work, and she has the temerity to put that out?”
Barkhuis announced Sept. 10 that she was going on medical leave for an undisclosed condition, and therefore would not reject the warrants for the Opportunity Fund grants.
Barkhuis on Tuesday said she remained on partial medical supervision and was allowed to do only minimal work.
“I am working from home, even through the budget,” Barkhuis said.
She added: “Just because I haven’t been at the office much lately doesn’t mean I haven’t been working hard at safekeeping the county’s taxpayers’ funds.”
Elected county officials are on set salaries and do not receive paid medical leave, Jones said. They get their full salary as long as they show up to work once every 45 days.
Barkhuis, who ran unopposed for a second four-year term in 2014, is scheduled to earn $79,356 next year in salary and $105,166 in combined salary and benefits.
Commissioner Jim McEntire said the board would have welcomed Barkhuis’ input when it began discussing the 2016 budget in June.
“I’m pretty comfortable with all the functions that are built into the budget,” said McEntire, board chairman, on Tuesday.
“It’s kind of late in the day for anybody, let alone an elected official, to come in with a major argument of what we’ve thoroughly vetted and thoroughly discussed.”
McEntire said he wondered if Barkhuis is “ready, willing and able to take a constructive role” in county government.
“There is something that is amiss between her and the administrator,” McEntire said.
“He’s doing [his job] well, in my personal estimation. All of these allegations that [Barkhuis] has a history of making against him are just that. They’re not founded.”
Barkhuis said the extra funding for the prosecuting attorney’s office was a last-minute decision made in a Nov. 2 budget meeting that was not noticed to the public.
Commissioners met with Nichols in a scheduled budget meeting Oct. 27.
Nichols said he was asked to attend a non-departmental budget meeting Nov. 2 to discuss public records requests.
After that discussion, Commissioner Mike Chapman, who missed the Oct. 27 budget talks, queried Nichols about his requests for additional staff, Nichols said.
Barkhuis said the changes to the draft budget and a lack of information about changes to the general fund reserve between Oct. 9 and Nov. 12 represent a “complete lack of transparency and integrity.”
“This is how it has been, and it’s even worse this year,” she said.
Barkhuis provided an email chain in which she questioned Jones’ recommendation for an increase in investment interest.
“Since the interest rate percentages we have been earning are so very tiny, the smallest interest rate increase the Fed can do would likely result in a doubling of our expected annual return,” Jones replied Nov. 20.
Barkhuis countered that a 2-percent interest rate seemed “highly unlikely.”
“In addition, county reserve funds have been, and continue to be, significantly depleted, so any increase in interest rates will likely be offset, and then some, by decreased principal,” Barkhuis wrote.
Barkhuis on Tuesday she has a “very solid investment strategy” and that Clallam County is getting a “very healthy” 1 percent return on its investments.
“There no way, in my opinion, we’re going to go to $500,000 [in investment interest],” Barkhuis said.
“We haven’t been going there for years now.”
She added: “Now we’re going to have millions less in reserve.”
________
Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
