District Three Supervisor and Board President Carl McGee struggled to verify the work on the $683,000 in unpaid invoices presented to him by the former county engineer.
At Monday’s regular Board of Supervisors meeting, District Four Supervisor Mala Brooks added IMS’s invoices to the agenda, saying she just learned about them last week.
Brooks asked the County Administrator, Chelesa Carter why upon receiving the invoices from IMS they weren’t added to the agenda.
“I was advised not to by the attorney when I asked if he recommended those for payment,” Carter said. “Given the amount of the invoices, and everything going on with IMS I didn’t think it was appropriate for me to put it on the agenda.”
Brooks said her concern was decisions like this are for the five supervisors to make and not the attorney or the administrator.
“If IMS or anyone sends us an invoice we all should be here to make a decision,” Brooks said. “I was really displeased that these invoices have been sitting here for almost two months, and this is the first I’m hearing about them.”
Brooks said she thought Carter and Willie Griffin, the board’s attorney, had overstepped their bounds by making decisions that were the board’s to make.
McGee pulled a thick packet of printed emails out of a folder and said that the emails were from around the time the invoices were submitted by IMS.
Brooks immediately said she never received the emails.
McGee pointed out that if the supervisors looked at the bottom of the page they would find their names having been looped in on the emails.
“We've gone back and actually looked in an attempt to validate and verify these invoices for that amount of money, and we're still having trouble validating these invoices. The appropriate process for most of them is to be sent to state aid for state aid approval of funds released and that kind of thing. For state aid to reimburse the county,” McGee said. “Some of the work we can't even verify at this point, but we're looking, and it's to the point now where we're going to have to have additional assistance at the state level to verify some of these documents and these charges.”
McGee asked the board not to make a motion to pay the invoices until they can be reviewed by the board with assistance from the state.
Several times during the exchange between McGee and Brooks, Rod Hill, one of the owners of IMS, raised his hand and stood trying to enter the discussion, but McGee told him the board would get to him.
Brooks said she wanted to hear from Hill, and asked McGee why he hadn’t reached out to IMS to help verify the invoices, Mcgee said he had their information and it was the state he needed to reach out to for help and not IMS.
Brooks tried to make the point that in 2020 Hooker got paid for their work after IMS replaced them as the county engineer, and the board should pay IMS because they paid Hooker.
An increasingly frustrated McGee re-explained the process for submitting plans to the state so the county could be reimbursed, and that process was not followed by IMS but was by Hooker.
“You have these invoices, over $600,000, which we have not been able to verify, we will be seeking assistance on these invoices. And Ms. Brooks, if you feel so strong and you're representing… you know, we all took the same oath. The oath I took and swore putting my hand on the Bible, it was to represent the citizens of Washington County to the best of my ability, and I do with pride,” McGee said. “There's no question in anybody's mind when I say something in this meeting, or when I make a motion to this board who I represent, no doubt at all I represent the taxpayers. I make sure that this board is as efficient as possible with taxpayer dollars. That you have all the information that you need when you make a decision, so you don't make a hasty decision that you will regret. Now, if you all want to do anything with them, you're more than welcome. But my advice to you, since we took an oath to represent the taxpayers, and some of you may have decided to represent some other interest.”
Brooks insisted on hearing from Hill because she had questions about the invoices.
Hill got straight to the point with McGee's statement of seeking verification.
“You're stating that you're going to go to the state for further clarity. I'm pretty sure the state is going to refer you to the contract. The contract is very clear, that at the point you decide to terminate, this board is authorized through board order for us to do the work, which we did, which we have turned in drawings and plans and we have coordinated extensively with the state,” Hill said. “They have received the work. They were about to proceed with the work. At the time, y'all made a hasty decision to terminate us without having some kind of discussion on how we're going to handle projects that you all, this board, took proper order to authorize us, which is a contract. When you decide you want to terminate hastily without having a full discussion on how we get to a stopping point, then the contract going to tell you, and I hope that your attorney will review the contract, it's going to tell you that at that point when you decide to change and go and engage another engineer when you've already authorized us to do work, you're liable.”
Hill said the contract was plain and he doubted very seriously that the state was going to get involved because this was a contract matter and it's a legal matter.
“Unfortunately, we would be put in the position that we would have to resort to filing a lawsuit,” Hill said. “Since we talked about being good stewards of the taxpayers' money, that wouldn't be good stewardship.”
Referring back to 2020 Hill said he just wanted the same courtesy extended to Hooker Engineering extended to his company.
“How you all handled that was, when they made that demand of a million and a half or whatever it was, I can't remember the exact amount, as I can recall, some of the invoices said partial payment, meaning that's work that hadn't been completed,” Hill said. “It was work that the board authorized that company to do, and rightfully so, they deserve to be compensated for any work that they did, y'all paid that company, and you allowed them to complete projects. But they were paid, so we are asking for the same courtesy, we provided the work. We got proper authorization from this board. We just want to be paid for the services that we rendered, that's fair.”
McGee said the problem was the board couldn’t find IMS’s work.
“We don't have it in our clerk's office, we can't seem to find it at state-aid, and some of these invoices go back a ways,” McGee said. “You have not submitted an invoice since 2021, do your research. Now, you threatened us with a lawsuit, so you're finished. But we are going to do our due diligence, so don't come in here talking about how you have done work, when there's no work to be found.”
An argument started between Hill and McGee at that point with Hill saying there was work to be found, and McGee insisting that the work could not be located.
At this point, Brooks said McGee needed to stop saying we because she was not a part of what McGee was saying.
Well, I'm working for the citizens, McGee said. “I know who you work for.”
Brooks demanded to know what McGee was talking about.
“Who do I work for, sir?” Brooks asked.” Sir, Who do I work for?”
Without answering Brooks, McGee brought the discussion back to the invoices.
“We're going through the process to identify the work product. If we find the work product that was submitted in a timely manner, we have no problem paying for what we asked for as a board,” McGee said. “But I've said all I'm going to say on this matter, and you threaten us with a lawsuit.”
District One Supervisor and Vice President of the Board Lee Gordon said if the county owes IMS then the county wants to pay them.
“But it is a lot of money, and there's a lot of invoices, again, I can't verify everything,” Gordon said. “What I would like to see happen, for something of this nature and this large amount, I'd like to make a motion that we just refer to the state auditor's office and let them look at it.”
McGee seconded the motion but the vote failed 3-2 against.
McGee indicated that District Two Tommy Benson, District Five Jerry Redmond, and Brooks voted not to let Shad White’s office have a look at the invoices.
McGee said he was going to seek help from the state anyway because he had no choice.
Brooks told McGee to make sure to tell the state auditor about all of the stolen county road department equipment found in Carroll County.
McGee said that was reported, and there were also a number of things reported to the auditor’s office recently.
Brooks immediately made a motion to pay IMS the full amount, the vote was 3-2 in favor of paying.
McGee said they agreed to pay $683,000 for work they can’t verify, and asked where the money was going to come from because it was not budgeted for. Griffin said that should have been addressed before the vote, and Carter said the county wouldn’t get reimbursed from the state if the board did it this way.
Gordon said if it can be verified by state-aid then they might reimburse the county.
Hill stood up to address what Gordon said but was told by McGee he would be out of order and would be removed if he didn’t sit down.
Hill continued to try to explain himself loudly finally, McGee told Hill his company was terminated for lack of performance, Brooks talking over McGee said IMS was terminated because McGee didn’t like them.
McGee once more said it was for lack of performance.
“That is a lie,” Hill shouted. “That is a complete lie.”
McGee said that was enough from Hill that he needed to leave.
Chief Billy Barber stood up next to Hill, and Sheriff Milton Gaston stood up behind the board members.
Gaston said Hill was creating a disturbance, and disrespecting the board, but Brooks said she didn’t see anything wrong with what Hill was doing.
“There’s no disturbance,” Brooks said. “Sheriff, it’s just Carl McGee didn’t get what he wanted, and he’s mad about it.”
With Hill removed from the boardroom McGee said he wasn’t mad.
“I just hate to see $680 some thousand dollars misused, abused, and taken away,” McGee said. “I can’t believe you all paid that.”
McGee called Marcus Hooker the county engineer up to the lectern to give his report.
“I was this county’s engineer for 32 years, and I never made a demand of this board,” Hooker said. “I may not be a gentleman’s gentleman, but I don’t demand things from the people I work for.”
Hooker also wanted to make it clear that in those 32 years, he never received a single penny from county funds for any state-funded projects.
“We submitted our bill to State-Aid, and to the county administrator,” Hooker said. “Once the money was sent from the state to the county funds, that's when we were paid.”
