FIRE COMMISSION BLOWING SMOKE SCREEN?

I broke the story on Fire District 18's investigation and eventual firing of Chief Randy Shelton because it looked to me like the Commission was trying to do this very quietly. As a reporter, I am naturally suspicious whenever any public entity comprised of elected officials tries to carry on the public's business in secrecy.

Rather than conducting this business at regular meetings, the Commission called a number of "special" meetings in order to first place its Chief on administrative leave, approve the investigation and approve the spending of large amounts of taxpayer money to conduct it. For one of those special meetings, It gave the legally required public notice through a small legal ad in the TNT. For another, the commission's attorney told me of the meeting via a phone call I initiated on Monday, July 6. She said they were "looking at" Thursday, July 9 but she did not specify a time. After I searched for a posting of the meeting at the main headquarters, the first public notice I saw was on the day of the meeting and the time was at an earlier time than the Commission usually meets.

While the Commission complied with the letter of law, most of us who are served by Fire District 18 and thereby have a stake in these proceedings didn't hear about these special meetings.

I am also interested in how the Commission spends taxpayer's money. This is not my first experience reporting on an investigation of a Fire District 18 Chief. I covered the Doug Bishop investigation for The Gazette in 2005-6. My experience taught me then that no investigation of this magnitude is cheap. District 18 Fire Commissioner Shawn Mahoney confirmed in a recent Orting News Opinion Blog post that the majority of the $26,000-plus paid to Attorney Jacqueline McMahon in June went to the costs of this investigation. Now a month away from a levy election requesting taxpayers to continue at current funding levels -- a levy that voters rejected last year-- there is no evidence that Fire District 18 made attempts to be frugal with public money by requesting the State Auditor's office conduct the investigation or even to gain a third party opinion as to its merits.

That in itself begs the question whether Fire District 18 Board of Commissioners are in violation of RCW 43.09.185, which states, "State agencies and local governments shall immediately report to the state auditor's office known or suspected loss of public funds or assets or other illegal activity." A letter from the Commissioner's attorney to the State Auditor apparently was sent after the investigation. I find it interesting that it was dated July 10 -- a day after my July 9 public records request for a letter informing the State Auditor of the Commission's suspicions in compliance with the RCW.

Had this investigation been submitted to the State Auditor's office and the State had agreed that the documented allegations warranted investigation, then its office would have conducted the investigation. While the investigation would still have incurred costs that taxpayers paid for in some way, the use of in-house investigators and other resources available to the state agency would have minimized the direct costs to taxpayers in Fire District 18.

In my attempts to find out just how much this has cost the taxpayers of Fire District 18, I requested the payroll, warrants and vouchers approved by the Commission since September 2008. The commission does not annotate that information during its public meetings: It simply names voucher numbers and approves a total figure. To find out just what Fire District 18 is spending taxpayer money on, one must solicit the paperwork through a public records disclosure request and pay 15 cents a copy for it. According to the Fire Commission secretary, my request for financial information during the 10-months it says Chief Shelton was overpaid amounts to more than 500 pages of documents and the cost to me to look at those documents was approximately $85. After sifting through the paper, I find the Commission approves a monthly voucher that contains only the total payroll amount.

Why is that important? Because the only financially related allegation against Shelton is that he was paid for an extra six hours of vacation and for 10 months was paid $2000 per month more than he should have been paid. Did Shelton just arbitraily add an extra $2000 to his salary? No. According to the Commission, he legally received that payment as a part of his contract but he was supposed to discontinue receiving it when the City of Orting and the Fire District consolidated in September 2008.

In addition, I have been told Shelton allegedly repaid the entire amount in dispute -- allegedly $20,000 -- immediately after it was brought to his attention, even though he had been given a year to do so. That allegation paints an entirely different picture of Shelton's intent and whether the Commission actually has suffered any financial loss whatsoever. What I want to know is whether the Commission continued to approve Shelton's salary during the months he was overpaid, and if so, does the Commission share in the responsibility for the overpayment?

Do I have an anti-Fire Commission bias? No, not at all. So much of public service is grueling minutia. Ever fine-tooth-comb a budget? All three members of the Commission volunteer countless hours in the public service doing stuff nobody else wants to do -- as evidenced by the fact that the two commissioners up for re-election this year are running unopposed. Anyone willing to spend so much of their free time serving the public should be commended.

What bothers me about the Commission are the layers of insulation that have been built around its proceedings. Unless one is dogged, is willing to suffer criticism and pay dearly out of their pocket, specific information about the Commission proceedings is difficult, if not impossible, to access. I am not alone in this perspective: News Tribune reporter Melissa Santos complained July 9, while we waited outside the doors of the Commission's executive session, that Fire Commission 18 makes it very difficult to get information and other fire districts do not make it so hard.

And I intend to continue reporting on Fire District 18 because I believe taxpayers should be allowed to know how government spends its money. That is the only axe I have to grind.

File photo of Barbara Hansen