through May
Leelanau County’s new Board of Commissioners extended weekly stipend payments to County Clerk Michelle Crocker and Chief Deputy Clerk Jennifer Zywicki again this week.
These stipends were scheduled to end Feb. 21 but now will be paid through May 30.
Crocker and Zywicki have been getting paid to assist the county’s new finance department since December 2022, as the department has experienced high turnover and the clerk’s office used to manage the county’s payroll before a separate department was established in 2021.
The board approved the extension by a 5-2 vote, with commissioners Steve Yoder, Ty Wessell, Gwenne Allgaier, Will Bunek, and Alan Campbell supporting the motion, and commissioners Rick Robbins and Mark Walter opposed.
Interim Administrator Richard Lewis is fronting the bill. He previously recommended in November the board taper the stipends off before ending them completely Feb. 21. They were each being paid $250 per week, but since November, the stipends were reduced to $62.50 per week.
Now Lewis feels his earlier recommendation was a mistake, and he wants to continue the stipends through May 30. He was even willing to give up a chunk of his paycheck to make it happen.
“The cost (of the stipends) is going to run about $4,383.20. I am funding it. I will not receive a paycheck for this two-week pay period, which will be covering more than $4,300,” Lewis said.
None of the county commissioners seem to think that paying these stipends is an especially good solution. But they’ve extended them multiple times because they feel that it’s the least bad option.
Commissioner Allgaier argued that the finance department could backslide without support from the clerk’s office.
Allgaier was the only one who wanted to revisit the stipends issue at the Jan. 14 executive session, which typically means the item would not have been considered again this week. Lewis recommended the board extend the stipends at his expense.
“In my lack of understanding at the time, I thought, ‘Great, we’re all here. We can do this. We don’t need any more assistance from the county clerk or the deputy county clerk.’ Never mind that they had over two decades in all the finances and human resources, and that experience was going to somehow have to get transferred over to the folks who just came in,” Lewis explained.
Commissioner Campbell applauded Lewis for “being sincere and honest and open” for admitting he made a mistake and offering to take a hit to his pay. Not everyone was as impressed, however, as commissioners Robbins and Walter were critical of extending the payments yet again.
“This is one broken record,” Robbins said. “‘It’s going to end now, it’s going to end now,’ and then it never does. One big red flag (is) no one is saying who needs to be trained in what areas. What are our weaknesses? What are our strong points? Where does this ever end? Going to May isn’t going to fix anything — not on the system we have.”
When asked for her thoughts, Finance Director Cathy Hartesvelt repeated her earlier assessment that her employees needed more time and support from the clerk and deputy clerk before they could function as a self-sufficient department. In Hartesvelt’s opinion, they should extend the stipends for another 12 months.
Hartesvelt placed blame on the commissioners who voted to separate finance and HR duties from the clerk’s office for not having a coherent plan, and former administrator Deb Allen for deferring several financial responsibilities to third parties.
“The in-progress development of the finance department should be viewed as an experiment thus far, with false starts and missteps, as this undertaking was done without a planned rollout. What the county has experienced since 2022 is nothing short of chaotic with unforeseen variables and some unfortunate hires paying a part in where we are today,” Hartesvelt said.
The struggle to establish separate finance and HR departments has spanned several board terms now. An earlier board of commissioners voted to establish the departments in 2021, and the previous board spent their entire two-year terms trying to implement that directive.
Clerk Crocker agreed that the stipends “need to continue,” saying that she worked over 25 hours with the finance department last week, and that she does not intend to drag out the process any longer than necessary.
