Background Cindy/Cyndi Gray was put, without any apparently county commissioner agenda action several months ago, into working both payroll AND at the Expo. The job at the Expo had no specific title nor any duties spelled out, and Gray officed at both places. It was unclear for awhile whether Gray was also being paid, besides for payroll, but for whatever the job was she was going on a temporary basis at the Expo. In June, she was voted on to do day to day operations at the Expo, but there was still no job description for that nor anything that indicated what the duties of that job were. I was told by two commissioners that she would not have anything to do with money (checks, cash, credit) , but that does not appear to be accurate from this last meeting in which the General Manager of the Expo position was discussed and voted upon (specifically a position for Gray). She is definitely not payroll anymore, but that is now part of the Treasurer (Valerie Williams) position (going back to what the position once was that included payroll).
One of the great things about Haley de Los Santos, who is the HR person now, is she has created and is keeping up on Personnel Action Forms which show information about promotions, demotions, transfer, suspension, pay increases, resignations, etc on an employee basis. This was NOT done before and it’s a fantastic thing to see. In the form below, you can see where Gray is listed under transfer with 6/1 effective date and gets a cell phone allowance, definitively showing she is no longer in the payroll department.
What that seems to mean is that there would need to be a new budget carve out for this position of General Manager, which now exists but did not before and the budget item for payroll remains as it was. When Suzanne Graves was treasurer, she had hired Gray in as a clerk, with the proviso that Gray have nothing to do with the money or finances, and presumably that would be available for Williams now as well. Adding that the job description for Gray at the point when she became payroll, she reported to the commissioners; ie, they were her boss; now her boss is Nikki Weedon
Rough transcript: Watch video for exact
Chambers: Discuss take action on job description pertaining to general manager of Somervell County Expo operations. Haley has worked with Trey, myself and Ill just read this. Personnel action form. Cyndi Gray. Transfer effective as of June 1, maintain current salary as well as cell allowance; general manager expo operations, exempt as she has been. Supervisor: Somervell County auditor, all of the other issues in this. …
Audience: I’d like to know if the job description, since it’s not available till after the meeting, Does it indicate how the finances and money would be held or who’s responsible .. In other words, I was told by two different commissioners that Cyndi Gray would not have anything to do with any finances or money at the Expo. Does the job description explicitly spell that out?
Chambers: I won’t say that I’ve seen that. I can tell you how we’ve been handling it. Nicky, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, you go down there every morning to take care of all the finances.. bars, tickets, concession stands.
Terry Starnes: That pretty well sums it up right there
Audience: Can I just add to that.. If somebody bought something from the bar, does that money go directly to Nicky, then? Does it go into some kind of a lockbox?
Weedon: Goes into a lockbox after they’re free with that.
Audience: So at no time does Cyndi Gray have any access to the finances or money that come in through the Expo.
Weedon: I’m not going to say that she might not, but as a whole, you have your bartenders, concession and all that. .. There’s no reason that she can’t. But as of right now the way we’re doing it is that way.
I think this is a problem. Either Gray does not have anything to do with cash/checks, etc or she does. If she is the point of contact for events or contracts, doesn’t that, by necessity, involve handling money? Weedon said “I’m not going to say that she might not” which opens the door for Gray to be doing so. I have to believe that the commissioners were honest when they said Gray would not be doing anything with money, yet here it appears that she is.
Audience: So you’re the one that’s responsible for it and not Cyndi Gray. Okay
If Somervell County sells the Expo to a private buyer, and they decide to keep on Gray as an employee, that would be their choice and they could overlook her background. I personally feel that when taxpayer money is involved, there should be a higher bar for employees. I have respect for Weedon but question whether looking in on someone once a week to go over financials prepared BY Gray is oversight enough. Also, since Gray trains people on the POS system, what security access does she have to the software; ie, does she have admin or similar permissions or is her role as a user? Does every transaction for say, cash paid for beer, have a receipt that is sequential and tied into the POS? What is good is that presumably this is the responsibility of Weedon over Gray, to ensure the integrity of sales, transactions and contracts.
