County looks to tighten control of staff out-of-state travel

The Oneida County executive committee recently approved an after-the-fact request for out-of-state staff travel, citing an oversight, but committee members made clear they wanted such travel to follow established procedures.

The issue also exposed a contradiction in the county code.

The way the county code stands now, staff out-of-state travel requires approval from the county’s executive committee, but in practice it may be easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission in the first place.

The request was for a staff member of the Land and Water Conservation Department to attend a conference for invasive species, which took place just over the state line in Duluth, Minn.. The conference and the travel had already taken place.

County clerk Tracy Hartman said she received an email two weeks earlier from county conservationist Michele Sadauskas. The department had gone to the land and water committee, the department’s committee of jurisdiction, to get approval for the travel, and had received it.

“They did not realize that out-of-state travel actually has to come to the executive committee for approval to get paid,” Hartman said. “She wasn’t sure what to do. I said we’d already had our meeting, so it was going to have to be after-the-fact, but that for policy purposes we did need this on the minutes showing that she had approval so that she could get paid.”

Supervisor Steven Schreier wanted to know what would happen if the executive committee did not now approve it.

“Then I don’t know that finance will pay her,” Hartman replied.

Finance director Tina Smigielski said the process of receiving approval for travel was in the county code.

“It’s been in the county code that if you go out of county you need your committee approval,” Smigielski said. “If you go out of state, you need what used to be administration committee — it probably still says admin committee — but executive committee approval. If you completely blow that, then yeah, if we get it in writing from the chairman of the board, we would pay it.”

Smigielski said they were not going to not pay an employee. Still, the finance director said, the rules were not new.

“There would still be a way that we would find to be able to pay the employee,” she said. “It’s not the employee’s fault that their department head didn’t follow the procedure.”

Not only that, but executive committee chairman Billy Fried said the organization sponsoring the conference paid for the majority of the trip and it was an honor for the employee to attend because she was a speaker at the event.

Still, Smigielski said, the way it’s funded is not relevant for that particular section of the code.

“The section of the code’s very clear if you’re traveling out of state,” she said. “You all can change the code, but our code is very clear.”

Schreier said he had brought up the issue at previous meetings but it had yet to be addressed.

“It would be nice if we could look at this language about out-of-county and out-of-state travel and whether, one, do we really need to have it come to this committee to be approved if something’s approved at their committee level.”

Approved in the budget but not really

Frankly, Schreier said, if the budget is approved and it specifies money for out-of-county or for out-of-state travel for training and other purposes, why go through the extra step to do the approval process? 

“I’m sure there was some reason that we did it, but at the same time, if we’re doing it after-the-fact, it seems even dumber to me, to be perfectly honest,” he said.

Supervisor Robb Jensen said getting approval for out-of-state travel from more than just the committee of jurisdiction was appropriate.

“I think, in-state with just the committee of jurisdiction, I don’t have a problem with that, but I think just out of a knowledge thing for us as an executive committee, it’s good to know when we are approving people for out-of-state travel because you can get yourself in a difficult position in, why did you do this? And so this obviously I think was an oversight.”

Nonetheless, Jensen, who serves on the land and water conservation committee, said the request could probably have made its way to the committee before the conference because the committee meets every other week but didn’t because of an oversight. 

Fried asked if there was any concern about the out-of-state travel other than the process.

“Well I think if we approve this, an email could be sent to land and water indicating that we approve this, however, please be advised that without receiving executive committee approval in the future, it may not be approved,” Jensen said. “I think sometimes we have to document it.”

Specifically, Jensen clarified, the committee would notify the department head that an exception was made to the county code and that in the future it may not get approved and to be sure to follow county code.

Smigielski said the issue was a bit of a slippery slope because after-the-fact is when the county would usually catch the out-of-state travel.

“The only time we catch this via payroll is when the employee submits for reimbursement,” she said. “So I mean there really could be a way that people are traveling out of state. It’s really the out-of-pocket expenses for the employee, the mileage and all that kind of stuff. That’s when we catch it. So I don’t disagree that the travel language should be reviewed at some point. If the committee gives us direction to do that, it’s something we can put on our to-do list, but until that time we follow the code.”

Schreier said he realized that the issue was not a major priority, but he also said it should be addressed at some point. For one thing, he said, he didn’t like approving after-the-fact requests, whether it was inadvertently missed or whatever the reason was. 

“I feel like we’re being put between a rock and a hard place,” he said. “Well, they’ve already paid for it, so now what? If you don’t pay for it then I guess it comes out of the employee’s pocket basically. Is that what we’re saying? Because if we don’t cover it, they pay for it.”

In that case, Smigielski said she would work with the department head to find another avenue to reimburse an employee. 

“It is not the employee’s fault that their department head didn’t ensure that the proper steps were taken,” she said. “It is a department head’s responsibility.”

Woulda, shoulda, coulda

Fried said he would like the issue to be put on a future agenda.

“As far as what’s in front of us today, I just want to say that I think there was probably some indication that the timing wasn’t working with the committee meetings,” he said. “Yes, it probably could have come sooner. We understand that and we’ll emphasize that in a reply, but I believe there was some approval given that [it was] OK and they could bring it to this meeting later. I don’t know for a fact.”

Hartman clarified how the issue got to the committee after the fact.

“I had the conversation with Michele [Sadauskas],” she said. “So the training was last week. The training was the 12th. We had a meeting on the seventh. She called me on the seventh and said, ‘Hey, I just discovered this was supposed to have gone to executive committee. It’s next Monday. She’s going out of town.’ I said, ‘well, our meeting is today. I can’t amend the agenda. We don’t have time to get it on there. We’ll do it after the fact because there’s nothing I can do for you this week.’ She felt horrible and had not realized that out of state had to come to this committee.”

She took it to her committee and got approval, Hartman said. 

“Nobody told her that,” she said. “I agree with Tina. It’s in the code. It should have been caught, but this is how we ended up where we’re at today.”

Jensen said there were two points to be made.

“One is making sure the department heads understand those aspects of the county code, and the other part is, and I’m on the committee, I’m not the chair of that committee, but the committee chairs need to be well versed in this as well, and that, when you see that, you immediately know where it’s got to go to,” he said.

So in-servicing for committee chairpersons is important, and Jensen said he too missed it as a committee member to say that it had to be forwarded to the executive committee.

Schreier also pointed out that sometimes circumstances arise that require quick action.

“For those who sit on public safety, there’s times we need literally to approve out-of-county travel and that’s it,” he said. “We call a meeting just to do that. And again, it’s because it’s in our code and that’s required. But to me, if it’s within their budget, let the department head decide whether or not that’s worth sending their employees to and I mean it just doesn’t make any sense to me to literally call together five people and pay them to meet to approve the [travel].”

The item will be studied and brought back to committee next year to see what changes, if any, need to be made.

That left only the approval for the specific out-of-state land and water conservation request and a question arose as to whether, given the code, the committee could actually approve the request.

The answer was yes. That’s true, but in fact it turns out the code is contradictory. One part of the code reads: “No out-of state travel, lodging or meal expenses for training, conferences and/or conventions incurred by Other Qualified Persons [every employee other than county supervisors] shall be paid unless approved by the Finance and Insurance Committee prior to the expense being incurred.”

That ‘shall’ would seem to indicate the committee had no authority to approve the request. But Smigielski pointed out to the newspaper that another part of the code states: “All supervisors and employees shall seek prior approval from the appropriate committee of jurisdiction prior to attending any out of county meeting. If time does not permit permission to be granted by the appropriate committee a county board supervisor or employee may seek permission from the county board chairman, if he should be unavailable permission may be sought form the 1st Vice-Chairman of the Board or 2nd Vice-Chairman of the Board (in that order). If permission is not granted prior to attendance of an out of county meeting, per diems and expenses may not be approved.”

That ‘may’ does give the committee authority to approve an after-the-fact travel request at its discretion.

But Smigielski said the issue needed to be addressed.

“It’s a good thing that the executive committee put travel and training reimbursement on the ‘to do’ list for early 2025 so language conflicts like this can be flagged and corrected,” she wrote in an email to the paper.

Richard Moore is the author of “Dark State” and may be reached at richardd3d.substack.com.