The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

DAYTON - At the close of their Sept. 7 meeting, Columbia County Commissioners and Columbia County Prosecutor Rea Culwell discussed the idea of seeking mediation to help overcome an impasse regarding how to utilize excess funds from a federally funded crime victim advocacy grant. The disagreement now threatens business as usual in Columbia County and Dayton.

Last year the U.S. Department of Commerce tripled funding for crime-victim advocacy. In Washington, every county prosecutor's office received additional money from the grant for improved recruitment and retention of personnel, through higher compensation.

Culwell's office was awarded approximately $68,500 for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2016. The previous year, her office received a victim advocacy grant of just over $37,000.

Last month, Culwell approached the commissioners about using some of the additional grant money for salary increases in her department.

An e-mail received by Culwell from the commissioners' office, dated Aug. 18, states that the commissioners proposed the following partial use of the additional grant funds: increasing the deputy prosecuting attorney's weekly hours by five, with a corresponding salary increase, hiring a new full time employee to replace the legal assistant, who was to retire at the end of 2016, and utilizing five percent of the grant for administrative costs and audit expenses, to be deducted from the grant.

However, Culwell's request for a $3,568 annual salary increase for Michelle McCleary, who is the legal administrator in the prosecutors' office, was denied by the commissioners. The email, which is signed by Commissioner Dwight Robanske, stated that all salary increases for county employees will be reviewed during the 2017 budgeting process.

When asked why the discrepancy in willingness to use some of the grant money for Culwell's request, but not for McCleary's salary, Commissioner Robanske said the commissioners' decision was based on an increase in hours for the deputy prosecutor, and that hiring a new person to replace the legal assistant was already in the budget.

Of concern to Commissioner Robanske is the fact that the initial request from Culwell asked for a raise of 17% for McCleary for 40 hours of work, and a second request asked for roughly 3½ hours of overtime on top of the regular 40 hours to do the same job, he said.

Culwell said McCleary has not had a pay raise in six years, and that McCleary's workload is increasing, to include new grant requirements, such as learning a state database for recordkeeping. Culwell has since reduced her request for McCleary's salary increase by $3,568, which represents about a 7.5% increase.

Culwell also said that the commissioners' refusal to compensate McCleary for the additional work requirements of the new grant that she performs has resulted in the inability of her office to fulfill the requirements of the grant. She says that, as a result, she will have no choice but to turn down the entire $68,000 grant, including the $37,000 continuation from the previous year that she had originally budgeted.

To meet the resulting budget reduction, Culwell has laid off her legal assistant, Ann Passmore, who had planned to retire Dec. 31; cut court facilitator services; cut superior court financial obligations and enforcement, which will be turned over to the superior court clerk's office to handle; and eliminated prosecution of non-domestic violence and non-DUI/Physical Control cases originating in the City of Dayton.

According to Superior Court Clerk Sue Marinella, the earliest her office will be able to process legal financial obligations will be in December or January.

At the commissioners' meeting on Sept. 7, Culwell told City of Dayton Administrator Trina Cole and Dayton Mayor Craig George, who were also present, that due to the overwhelming work load in her office, they should not expect her to prosecute cases such as trespass, theft, and driving without a license.

"I have a statutory obligation to provide crime victim advocacy to the community ... I don't have a statutory obligation to provide city services," said Culwell.

Mayor George said it was a matter of principle that the county honor the contract with the City of Dayton for prosecution services. "You have to provide services for the contract. The RCW says we have to prosecute people," said George.

"The RCW doesn't say I have to," Culwell replied.

"The city will get an injunction for you to provide services for the contract," George told Culwell,

City Administrator Trina Cole agreed, saying, "Our obligation is to the community ... We have to come up with a way to prosecute. You have to give a one-year notice of dissolution of the contract," she continued. "We want to see the contract honored. The last thing we want is to get an injunction."

Culwell responded, "I need budget support from the commission."

On Tuesday, an injunction filed by the city was received at the County Clerk's office. A hearing on the matter was scheduled for Wednesday.

At the end of last week's meeting, The three commissioners sat down with Culwell, to try and reach an agreement on how to resolve the impasse.

"We called an attorney from the risk pool to negotiate our way through this" Commissioner Robanske said to Culwell. "We don't want this to become so adversarial it spins out of control. We will fulfill that contract (with the city). We'll get somebody to do that. We need to find common ground we can work through," he added.

Culwell's advice to the commissioners was to give the grant documents, and any documents and communications between her and them, to their attorney for review.

Culwell has stated that she "would be more than happy to continue serving the community and restore all volunteer services, if the commissioners authorize the grant plan approved by the state OCVA grant administrator".

In separate phone interviews Commission Chairman Merle Jackson, Commissioner Mike Talbott, and County Auditor Sharon Richter spoke to the issue.

Richter said that McCleary was initially hired as a legal secretary, and she received a step raise in that capacity, after her probationary period ended. When McCleary's job title changed, she received the commensurate boost to her salary, Richter said.

Commissioner Talbott said, "There's nothing personal here. We all like Michelle."

According to Talbott, county employees have received 2%, 5%, and 2% annual cost of living raises in 2014, 2015 and 2016, respectively. And he said that the goal is to treat everyone fairly.

Chairman Jackson said, "We will look at all 2017 salaries for county employees in a few weeks. We would like to look at her (McCleary's) salary, taken as a whole."

Commissioner Robanske also said that it is fair to look at all the salaries at the same time. If there is money in the budget, it is possible that salary increases might go to employees who have been with the county for a longer period of time than McCleary has, he said.

Culwell said she hopes the commissioners will decide to approve the requested raise of $3,568 a year for McCleary.

Commission Chairman Jackson said he is hoping for a satisfactory resolution to the impasse through mediation, which could come through the risk pool, or through an independent mediator, he said.

Culwell told The Times on Monday that her office is required to submit an invoice by Oct. 1 for the first quarter of the fiscal year that began July 1. She said that if the commissioners do not agree to the requested raise for McCleary by the end of this month, her office will be unable to fulfill the grant requirements, and the grant funds will be lost.