Auditor's Chief Deputy Paid While In Las Vegas

It appears Monroe County’s new Auditor, Sandy Newmann, a democrat, will be keeping the State Board of Accounts busy with recent activities in her office. Just last week it was reported that Newmann had admitted making unauthorized purchases for fixed assets on a consumables supply account, that incident is currently under review by the State Board of Accounts. Also last week the County Commissioners, interestingly enough, pushed through an anti-nepotism provision in the County’s policies to prohibit family members from being hired by County officials. As you recall Newmann has her daughter working for her in the Auditor’s office and with others in that office looking to leave, the Commissioners probably wanted to make sure it stopped there. Now, purportedly Newmann has paid one of her office staff for un-worked hours, a violation of the County’s Personnel Policy. Apparently Cathy Smith, the Auditor’s Chief Deputy, accompanied her husband, Larry Smith, Monroe County Technical Services Director on a recent trip to a Las Vegas Convention on Homeland Security. He was sent to the convention as a County employee on County business, she however took time off from her job in the Auditor’s office to attend the convention on what should have been unpaid leave.

Monroe County personnel policy clearly indicates “Vacation, five days per year, after six months of employment with the County”. Since she started her job in the Auditor’s office on the first of January she obviously was not due any vacation days until June of this year. The County also has a provision for sick leave but clearly that could not be applied either, it reads as follows; “Monroe County provides paid sick leave benefits to all full-time employees for periods of temporary absence due to illness or injury”, she obviously wasn’t ill or injured. It is difficult to imagine someone that touted her vast experience in accounting, like Newmann did, being this negligent. It is unclear at this point what if anything is being done to address this most recent situation however this blatant misuse of public funds must be addressed. What is also interesting is why this hasn’t been reported in the local newspaper. It would appear that Mrs. Newmann’s troubles are far from over and she has only been on the job for five months.