Ritnour won’t release time sheets

The ongoing feud between members of the Gage County Board of Supervisors and Gage County Attorney Randy Ritnour continued Thursday during the Board of Supervisors meeting.

After an executive session at the beginning of the meeting, attorney Jerry Pigsley, of Harding and Schultz law firm in Lincoln, announced a resolution to the board’s most recent dispute with Ritnour.

Pigsley, an attorney hired by the supervisors, gave guidance on how the board should handle Ritnour’s refusal to turn in detailed employee time sheets, as stated by the Gage County employee handbook.

“It’s costing taxpayers for us to get other attorneys because of the way (Ritnour) has treated us in the past; by his own actions,” said Gage County Supervisor Gary Barnard.

“They turned down the $300,000 grant to prosecute DUI cases, twice, and they cut my budget by 35 percent,” countered Ritnour. “ … and then they spent that much money or more on private attorneys to say the same things I did.”

Neither members of the county board or Gage County Clerk Dawn Hill could say for certain what Pigsley charges the county for his time.

The supervisors and Ritnour have been conflicted since a disagreement over a grant proposal in July.

The grant, which would have paid a large portion of the cost of hiring an additional attorney to assist in DUI cases, was turned down by the county board, largely because of a disagreement on the actual cost of the salary for a new hire.

The second grant proposal allowed for $96,370 for the first fiscal year, and allowed for possibly getting the grant for the following years.

The conflict escalated after what some county officials refer to as a media frenzy, which included nearby TV stations, prompted by Ritnour, broadcasting during a county board meeting. Since then, Ritnour has been accused by supervisors of not doing the proper work for civil cases, which he claims is the result of never receiving written requests detailing the civil work.

A resolution passed by supervisors on Sept. 10 stated that each Gage County office employee is to complete detailed, hourly time sheets to be given to their supervisor and then passed to the County Clerk’s office for timely processing.

“They did so without consulting elected officials, which is something they have to do,” Ritnour said.

While Ritnour’s refusal has left county supervisors upset, it does comply with Fair Labor Standards Act’s record-keeping standards, which say the employer has to keep record of hourly time for a minimum of three years.

The Gage County handbook, changed on Sept. 10, normally has to be signed by all elected officials to be binding.

“Ritnour has never signed our handbook,” Barnard said.

Hill said her office is currently working on an updated employee handbook for the county. For it to be binding, all elected officials will have to sign it.

“They don’t have the authority to ask for the time sheets. Those are supposed to stay with the elected officials,” Ritnour said.

“It bothers me,” supervisor Dave Anderson said. “The Board has to approve claims for overtime. We demand detailed invoices from the other offices. What will stop another elected official from getting something paid for without question?”

Ritnour is not sure why the members of the board or the clerk’s office would need detailed time sheets for his employees.

“The board just wants people to be consistent,” Hill said. “They’re trying to get each office to be on the same page.”

Barnard is worried that the fact that time sheets aren’t being overseen by the clerk or members of the board could mean possible penalties at the time of an audit.

“If he makes a mistake or does something fraudulent, Gage County will be in trouble. The county will have the liability,” Barnard said, clearing the statement with Pigsley.

Ritnour doesn’t believe a problem will arise.

“First of all, that’s not the way that audits work,” he said.

He said the audits which Barnard was worried about, are rarely of an entire county at once and that, normally, offices are audited one-by-one.

“If they think that the county attorney can’t maintain time records, that’s just ridiculous,” Ritnour said.

At Thursday’s meeting, Pigsley mentioned that rarely does a county attorney wish to keep the time sheet records.

Even so, while Jefferson, Saline and Lancaster counties keep detailed time records in the county clerk’s office, Johnson and Pawnee counties don’t turn such records over to the clerk.

While Pigsley isn’t familiar with a situation like this, he said it is Ritnour’s right to handle the time sheets as he sees fit.

“It’s his office. They’re his employees,” Pigsley said. “All he has to do is say how many hours they worked.”

A U.S. Department of Labor official said Ritnour would not be in violation of any FLSA record-keeping requirements. The law requires that employers are to maintain their records, but the employer or division within an entity is not specified for holding the records.

As long as there are no problems in retrieving the records should the Department of Labor need them, then the office is in compliance.

Ritnour said his employees will be paid as usual and the latest disagreement won’t keep him from doing his job as an elected official.

“This will continue to be business as usual for us. We’re here to serve the residents of the county. Nothing is going to change,” he said.

Barnard hopes the feuds can stop so that the county can get back to serving the public.

“We are constantly putting out fires,” he said. “Somebody needs to stop this.”