A former Clinton County Board of Elections director pleaded no contest Tuesday to tampering with records and soon after was found guilty of the charge, a first-degree misdemeanor.
The case revolved around a vacation then-Board of Elections Director Judy Stapler took in December 2005. The tampering with records charge stemmed from a claim Stapler added language to the minutes of a board meeting without getting board approval to amend the minutes. Stapler reportedly added that the board approved a vacation with pay for her, whereas the original minutes do not specifically mention pay.
Sentencing is scheduled for Thursday. In the negotiated plea agreement reached Tuesday between prosecution and defense, the two sides recommend Stapler be placed on probation and be ordered to pay all court costs, including the special prosecutor's fees estimated at $5,000.
The plea agreement also indicates prosecution will not object to a future request the conviction be expunged after 18 months.
While there was no trial testimony because of the negotiated settlement, Board of Elections member Ann Reno previously said when she made the motion on the vacation request, she assumed it was a paid vacation.
However, Board of Elections member Lois Allen previously said nothing ever was brought to the table about paying for Stapler's vacation, which occurred prior to a one-year anniversary in the job.
Clinton County personnel policy says full-time county employees are eligible for 80 hours of paid vacation after one year of employment.
But even long-time Clinton County Board of Elections Chairman Roger Bennett didn't know about the one-year requirement.
According to a transcript of the Jan. 10, 2006, tape-recorded board of elections meeting, while discussing the vacation dispute, Bennett said, "I thought we approved she could go [on vacation] because of the time and so on and so forth, but we don't have anything to do with the pay scale and what the county commissioners and the - I had no way of knowing that you have to be here a year before you get paid for a vacation. I didn't know that."
After Stapler took her vacation, the board of elections payroll was submitted to the county auditor's office, but the auditor's office did not pay for the vacation time because Stapler had not been there a year.
Special Prosecuting Attorney Rocky Coss of Highland County said Tuesday, "I could say it could be a misunderstanding between the employee and the employer. But you don't fix what the board did by going in and changing the minutes and not telling the board ...."
Coss said if Stapler, after finding out the auditor needed something in writing to pay on the vacation, had asked the board to approve a motion specifying it was to be a paid vacation, "there is no doubt in my mind the board would have granted her the pay."
When Stapler was questioned by Clinton County Auditor Wanda Armstrong about vacation pay, Stapler called Reno, the board member who had made the motion for the vacation, said John Scaccia, attorney for Stapler.
A written statement by Reno indicates she told Stapler to take a copy of the minutes to show the auditor how Reno made a motion for Stapler to get a vacation, and Allen seconded the motion, and that should serve as proof for vacation pay.
"When I talked to Judy in a short period of time, Judy indicated that my motion was not in the minutes as stated - I then told Judy that the motion needed to be added to the minutes and the minutes corrected," wrote Reno.
Scaccia said Stapler was not trained in how to appropriately amend meeting minutes.
Stapler put the changed minutes in a book of minutes at the board office before she took the added language to the board for its approval or denial, said Scaccia. The attorney called it "a lapse of judgment on her part."
Later, when it was clear the board would not pay for the vacation, Stapler didn't put the original, certified minutes back in the minutes book, said Scaccia.
That's where the tampering issue came from, Scaccia said.
"It came down to a dispute between her and the auditor's office and ultimately, a lapse in judgment ...," said Scaccia.
Coss said, "We felt what she did was criminal in the sense that she altered the records. But the fact is there was some pay she could have gotten - part of the pay anyway - had she done it correctly. Based on circumstances of the case, we felt the end result in terms of sentencing would have been similar to what we agreed to had we gone to trial."
The costs in the case, said Coss, are "significant - several thousand dollars."
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