It’s getting to be a regular part of the routine at the Leflore County Board of Supervisors’ meetings.
Circuit Clerk Elmus Stockstill asks for the county to hire a third deputy clerk in his office; the board tells him he should pay for the position out of fees his office generates; both sides leave without a solution.
The scenario played out Monday for the third consecutive board meeting.
“I’m in dire need of some assistance down there. We’re hanging on, but work is sort of backing up on us,” Stockstill said.
Previous Circuit Clerk Trey Evans had three deputy clerks. When Stockstill took office in January, so did he; Stockstill hired two new clerks and kept one of Evans’ former clerks, Mary Rice-Roberson.
Another one of Evans’ deputy clerks, Brandi Layne Simpson, had a position created for her as legal secretary in County Court.
But then Sheriff Ricky Banks hired Rice-Roberson to work at the county jail when the county took over the jail’s operation at the beginning of February. That came after Stockstill told Rice-Roberson he couldn’t afford to pay her a salary supplement that Evans had been paying her, according to what the sheriff said at a previous meeting.
That led to Stockstill making requests for the board to hire a third clerk on Feb. 6, Feb. 13 and Monday.
Supervisor Wayne Self said Monday that he agrees a hire is needed but that it’s the advice of County Administrator Sam Abraham that it would create a budget problem for the county to pay the cost.
“We don’t want to put the taxpayers at a burden,” Self said.
The Board of Supervisors has already committed to paying Stockstill an additional $48,000 annually for record restoration and $20,000 as county register. That’s in addition to the maximum of $90,000 that Stockstill can be paid from fees his office generates for court filings, marriage licenses and other things.
The extra salary supplements weren’t in the budget this year. The funds had been paid to Evans previously but not at the time he left office because he had officially retired while continuing to work.
Self recommended that the board rescind the $48,000 it had agreed to pay Stockstill and use that money to hire a deputy clerk.
Stockstill offered that the board should transfer Simpson back to the circuit clerk’s office. He also said Abraham had advised him to wait until budget time.
Self said Stockstill should have worked a plan out with Judge Kevin Adams and Abraham, as Self had suggested when Stockstill first appeared before the board on Feb. 6.
The dilemma has its roots in a conflict between former County Judge Solomon Osborne and Evans.
Abraham said Evans paid all of the circuit clerk office’s employees out of fees the office generates for years. However, at some point Osborne stopped signing orders allowing the circuit clerk’s office to be paid fees for when its clerks worked in county court, Abraham said. At that point, the board hired Rice-Roberson as a county employee to work in Evans’ office.
Adams agreed on Feb. 6 to pay Stockstill fees for when Simpson works in county court, which Adams said is a major source of the total fees generated for the circuit clerk’s office.
Abraham said he believes Stockstill will still be able to make the $90,000 cap even if he pays to hire the new deputy clerk but said he can’t guarantee that.
Supervisor Robert Moore made a motion Monday for the county to hire and pay a clerk in Stockstill’s office, but it died because no other supervisor seconded it. Supervisor Phil Wolfe, who was absent Monday, had made the same motion at a previous meeting, but it also died for lack of a second.
Also Monday, the board purchased a 2012 Ford F-150 truck for Self to replace one that was wrecked. Abraham said the county received more from the insurance on the old truck, about $28,000, than the cost of the new one, about $27,000.
