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Monday, December 24, 2007
Ind. Gov't. - Hamilton County Prosecutor and County Council at odds
Tania E. Lopez of the Indianapolis Star reports:
NOBLESVILLE -- Hamilton County Prosecutor Sonia Leerkamp has accused the County Council of extortion after it cut her salary for not submitting employee performance evaluations.
"Quite frankly, I believe what they have done is not permitted by law," she said. "They can't use (the stipend) as leverage. It's called extortion or blackmail."In a special meeting Thursday, four members of the council voted unanimously to take away the $5,000 stipend typically added to Leerkamp's annual salary of $110,500 paid by the state.
Council members Brad Beaver, Meredith Carter, Judith Levine and Steve Schwartz cut the stipend because Leerkamp failed to submit employee evaluations of her staff, according to Beaver and Schwartz. * * *
"Back at the budget hearings, she was asked to do all the performance appraisals of all her employees and to sign the (employee) handbook," Schwartz said after Thursday's special meeting. "She didn't do it."
Even though county taxes are used to fund the salaries of employees in the prosecutor's office, Leerkamp said, the council cannot dictate how she runs the office. She interprets constitutional case law as giving prosecutors the ability to operate their offices independently.
"My employees are not county employees because of that unique status," she said. "The responsibility of the county (council) is for them to fund my office, and that's the only statutory authority they have over me."
Leerkamp said she never signed the county's handbook because she had objections over revisions that were made to the documents in 2006.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 24, 2007 04:28 PM
Posted to Indiana Government