Greenwood-Leflore Emergency Management Agency Director Troy Brown says Chancery Clerk Sam Abraham is trying to have him replaced.
In an op-ed column published in today’s Commonwealth, Brown also alleges that Abraham distributes equipment in Brown’s department “at will” and interferes in his day-to-day work.
“All I want to do is my job; that’s all I want to do,” Brown said Saturday by phone. “Sam has done everything to hinder me from doing that.”
Brown emailed the op-ed column to the Commonwealth earlier in the day. In it, Brown sounds a familiar theme that has been voiced periodically by Abraham’s critics: namely, that the longtime chancery clerk exerts inordinate power.
Abraham, Brown writes, “believes from the depth of his heart that he runs Leflore County and everyone in it and that he knows best. No matter what expertise you bring to the table, unless it meets the agenda of the ‘Book of Sam,’ it is wrong.”
Abraham disputes Brown’s allegations. He said he hasn’t dealt with Brown since the emergency management director was placed under the sheriff at the beginning of January.
“That’s between the sheriff, him and the board,” Abraham said. “I’m not in charge of him anymore. He’s not doing his job, and he wants to blame everybody else.”
As for trying to replace Brown, Abraham said only the board has the power to do so.
“I’m not sure what’s wrong with Troy at this point,” Abraham said. “He seems to want to blame me for all his failures, and I don’t have anything to do with him.”
Brown and Abraham have had an often contentious relationship since Brown was hired last August to replace former GLEMA Director T.W. Cooper.
Brown has alleged that Abraham endangered grant funding by going over his head. Brown also complained that Abraham authorized County Fire Coordinator Gary Fulgham to take GLEMA equipment without Brown’s permission.
For his part, Abraham has questioned Brown’s competence as a department administrator but denied improperly meddling in Brown’s department.
“If he does his job, I think he’ll be fine,” Abraham said.
Brown has been working on completing an updated inventory for his agency since he was hired. He was asked at Monday’s Board of Supervisors meeting to bring a list of missing items back with additional details and serial numbers.
Brown claimed his efforts to locate the department’s equipment have been hindered by Abraham. Brown claimed Abraham has handed out GLEMA equipment to other county departments without following proper procedures, an allegation Abraham denies.
Brown would not be the first emergency management director to take issue with the chancery clerk’s involvement in that department.
Cooper, the retired director, said Saturday he felt Abraham’s interference regularly prevented him from carrying out his duties during his 11 years with the agency.
When Cooper was director, the agency was under the supervision of Abraham, who also serves as county administrator. When Brown was hired, the supervisors voted initially to place GLEMA directly under the board.
The department was placed back under the county administrator for a week in December before finally being placed under the supervision of Leflore County Sheriff Ricky Banks. Banks declined to comment on Brown’s allegations or state whether there were any continuing issues since Brown was placed under his direction, saying it was a personnel matter.
District 3 Supervisor Anjuan Brown said he thought placing GLEMA under the Sheriff’s Department had solved the matter. He added that he wasn’t aware of any efforts by Abraham to replace Brown as GLEMA director.
“I don’t have any knowledge of what he’s talking about,” Brown said. “Abraham can’t fire him. Only the board can terminate any employee.”
Cooper refused to sign off on an inventory when he retired last June because he never had “full and complete control” of many items and that much of the equipment wasn’t properly signed out.
“The stuff that was loaned out without my knowledge, I don’t feel responsible for that,” Cooper said.
“Normally, as a rule, the director of a department has control over any and everything that’s on the inventory under his name,” Cooper said. “That is not the case in Leflore County. The county administrator has already made clear he’s responsible for all the county inventory. I’m assuming he feels that gives him the authority to give it out to anyone he wants to whenever he wants to.”
Abraham said Cooper was mischaracterizing the way the department operated. Although Abraham said he would occasionally instruct Cooper to assign equipment to other departments, “being over the emergency management at that time, that was my prerogative to do that.”
However, Abraham denied ever allocating equipment improperly, saying “I didn’t personally sign out anything to anybody.”
