In the Tuesday, May 26, Board of Supervisors meeting, Supervisor Jessica Hobbs brought up that she believed the amendment to the county contract with Solutions was due to County Attorney Stephen Swanson verbally assaulting the employees of Solutions via email (video link here). At issue is a request by the company Solutions who provides services to Madison County. Solutions had requested that the county establish a single point of authority for certain requests. Following the statement made on Tuesday by Hobbs, we requested the emails referenced.
The emails show an escalating dispute involving payroll issues, IT service complaints, and demands for audit and access information. Swanson questioned whether Stancil had changed payroll figures. He requested IP logs, access records, and user activity information in an effort to determine who changed the salaries, mentioning that he hasn’t had a raise in 2 years.
The email thread is lengthy, with much back and forth over a 12-day period in April. We are including the email in its entirety as received by Supervisor Hobbs via open records request. What follows are some highlights from the conversation.
April 22 4:34 p.m., Swanson directly asked Stancil: “From your answers it appears the person who changed all of the numbers was you? Is this the case?” In an earlier email Swanson stated that his payroll had been “illegally deducted” and referred to “the person who did in fact lower my pay.”
April 23 8:56 a.m., Solutions responded to the allegation against Stancil, stating: “…it has been clearly communicated multiple times that Heather Stancil does not have, and has not had, any login access to the Vision software system. That is not a viable scenario.”
April 23 11:22 a.m. Swanson responded: “While we are at it, I am officially FOIA requesting all communication between you, Beth, and Heather Stancil and Matt Schwarz. Including any and all e-mails, text messages, call logs, notes from calls, and any other communication you have had with either of those people. Thank you.”
April 23 11:23 a.m. Solutions Legal Counsel Attorney Amanda Fell entered the conversation and issued a formal response emphasizing that Solutions was a neutral third party and requesting that “all communications with our employees remain professional.” Fell stated that Madison County’s “ongoing internal disputes disrupt our support organization and create unnecessary distractions.” She went on to state, “….in light of the foregoing and to prevent any conflicting instructions, Solutions is formally requesting an amendment to our contract with the County. This amendment would expressly identify the individual (or position) with ultimate authority to direct Solutions with respect to non-standard IT requests, including, but not limited to, requests related to records and data access. A clearly defined, contractually agreed-upon point of
authority will benefit all involved and reduce the risk of confusion going forward.” Fell also addresses the FOIA request by Swanson in her response.
April 23 11:26 a.m. Swanson’s response: “I expect your employees not to basically call me a liar, especially when I have receipts From Jan 13 to Feb10, but here we are.” (given the timeframe indicated here, this appears to be in response to internet issues)
Subsequent emails are logistics discussions between Supervisor Stancil and Legal Counsel Amanda Fell regarding the amendment process.
As mentioned previously, this is a lengthy email thread (15 pages printed) and this article is only meant to highlight some key portions. We encourage readers to read the entire email for additional context.
The amendment to the Solutions contract was later referenced during the Board of Supervisors meeting and it appears that an agreement was reached between Solutions and the Board members that all three Board members can be a point of contact rather than designating one single person.
