County Commissioners Vote to Approve Mediation Agreement with County Employee

A confidential County Attorney Board Meeting was held during the first portion of the February 5 Wakulla County Board of County Commissioner’s meeting concerning the pending litigation of the plaintiff Colleen Skipper vs. the Wakulla County Property Appraiser’s office, and former Property Appraiser Anne Ahrendt, in her individual capacity.

The cause for litigation stemmed from former Property Appraiser Anne Ahrendt terminating Ms. Skipper for continually violating office policy.

The confidential meeting was attended by all five county commissioners, Chairman Brian Langston, Howard Kessler, George Green, Ed Brimner, and Maxie Lawhon. Also in attendance were County Attorney Ron Mowrey, County Administrator Ben Pingree, Deputy County Commissioner Joe Blanchard, and FACT Attorney Tim Warner. An official court reporter was also present.

Following the confidential meeting, the county commissioners were asked to vote on whether or not to approve the mediation agreement. A motion to accept the settlement agreement was made by Commissioner Maxie Lawhon, and a second was given by Commissioner Ed Brimner. Prior to the vote, Commissioner Howard Kessler stated that the commissioners had been advised by County Attorney Ron Mowrey not to discuss the mediation before the public. “We have been advised by Mr. Mowrey not to discuss the mediation,” said Kessler, “and just take the vote.”

Wakulla County citizen Dana Peck spoke out against the settlement, noting that “an employee was fired for defrauding the county.”

“Your very own audit showed that there were no financial records kept in this office, which was one of the jobs of this employee,” said Peck. “This employee wrote checks to herself that far exceeded her $39,000 annual salary. Public records show that the checks come to a total of $84,000. This is bad judgment all the way around. The employee justified some of the income by charging $5000 for one hour of overtime. At the very least this is poor judgment.”

Peck continued that there was a “settlement in the wind” that said this employee could possibly be moved into another job in the county which would pay a salary of $40,000 per year.

“If this employee draws a paycheck for 10 years you are settling for $400,000,” said Peck. “If this employee gets benefits for 10 years you are settling for $600,000. This is a reward for bad performance at the very least. What kind of message are you sending out to the public with this type of settlement? And what kind of message are you sending to other county employees who work very hard and do a good job and do the right job and do not make huge salaries? And what kind of message are you sending to our young people? Don’t do a good job, turn around and sue and we will pay you a huge amount of money. This is a bad message.”

Commissioner Howard Kessler noted once again that he wanted to make sure the record stated that there would be no discussion of the settlement agreement per instruction by County Attorney Ron Mowrey, who stated that the “case was not yet closed.”. A vote was then taken, and the motion passed 4 to 1 with Commissioner Kessler opposed.

This article originally published on February 6, 2007.

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