After Lengthy Closed Session Suspension Becomes a Retirement

The Flatonia City Council voted Tuesday night, Aug. 25, to accept the retirement of City Secretary Melissa Brunner.

Brunner was placed on paid suspension back in June for undisclosed reasons. City Manager Sarah Novo opened an investigation into Brunner at that time. Novo presented Council with the findings of her investigations during an executive session Tuesday night. The Council meeting was held via telephone and video conference due to COVID-19. The executive session was closed to the public and lasted more than an hour.

When the Council reconvened in open session, they voted unanimously to accept a request from Brunner to retire from City employment. Her retirement was effective 5 p.m. on Aug. 21. The motion that the Council voted upon also stated, “City Council hereby finds that a public policy purpose of bringing finality to potential claims and litigation will be served by accepting said retirement and paying the City Secretary a sum equal to three months salary, subject to the execution of a full and complete release by the City Secretary of any and all past, present and future claims against the City of Flatonia relating to her past or continued employment as City Secretary or the reasons or causes for the review of the City Secretary’s continued employment.”

Councilwoman Donna Cockrell made the motion and Councilwoman Catherine Steinhauser seconded it.

After the meeting, Novo declined to discuss details about the investigation or Brunner’s retirement, citing employee privacy issues.

Concerning a separate matter related to a disaster mitigation grant application, Council voted Tuesday night to update official City policies concerning financial management and procurement. During the discussion about those policies, Steinhauser suggested certain procedures to “prevent a repeat,” as she put it in open session.

“I think it would be good to clarify this,” Steinhauser said. “Let’s say the secretary receives and checks-off all the invoices. I think we need to have a threeway check. There should be another staff member who would reconcile the bank statements. And the city manager would sign off on everything.”

Novo told the Council that she already implemented such procedures. Steinhauser said she wished to see those policies adopted in writing.

“You made those changes since you came, because you’re trying to prevent a repeat,” Steinhauser said.

That spurred a conversation about potential abuses. Cockrell proposed the following scenario: a city employee orders a large number of supplies and that same employee was responsible for checking in those supplies when they arrived. Cockrell said there could be potential for abuse since no one else in the city administration would know whether the City actually received all of the supplies.

“When it comes in, someone else should have to sign to say, yes, we did receive that,” Cockrell said.

“Maybe (the employee) cut a deal with (the vendor), saying they will order this, the City will pay for it, the (vendor) gives (the employee) a cut of that money, and we never see (the supplies),” Cockrell said.

Mayor Bryan Milson said he did not believe employees in the City administration would defraud the City in such a way.

“I really think you’re demeaning the trust you have with City employees by putting these regulations on them,” said Milson. “At some point, you have to have a little bit of trust in your employees.”

“Yeah, we did, Bryan,” one of the female council members said, although it was unclear in the teleconference meeting which one said it.

Councilman Dennis Geesaman said he opposed micromanaging the City Manager in regard to specific procedures. He instead suggested that Novo should develop a set of written procedures allowing City employees to efficiently procure necessary supplies while also maintaining a system of checks and balances so that no one employee is responsible for placing orders, checking invoices and reconciling bank statements. The Council would then review her written plan and offer their own suggestions. Council ultimately approved the policy documents so that the grant application could move forward.

The Record filed an open records request on Wednesday for documents related to the investigation, Brunner’s response to the investigation and documents related to the new financial procedures that Novo put in place. The City has not yet responded to our request. The Flatonia City Council hired Novo as the new City Manager on March 10. She replaced former city manager Mark McLaughlin, who served from April 2016 to November 2019. He left to take the city manager position in Kingsville.