Supervisors Brock, Cupples spar over leadership, communications style

It's still four months before the November Jasper County Board of Supervisors general election, but retiring member Joe Brock, D-rural Monroe, and board chairperson Doug Cupples, R-Newton, are still sparring at the bench over multiple issues, from communication to leadership style.

Their differences came out in a nearly 2.5-hour supervisors meeting June 26, beginning with a discussion item on digitizing county budgets and employee timesheets and ending with an ongoing debate whether or not to fill a vacant clerk's position in the Jasper County Auditor's Office.

Confused vendors

The debate last week began when Cupples said he'd been making calls to the county's contracted software vendors, asking questions about the digitizing county budgets and employee timesheets. County employees informed the supervisors' chairperson they've been working on this for several months and the board had previously been informed of staff's progress.

Jasper County information technology department network administrator Ryan Eaton asked Cupples why he would circumvent staff with his questions and go straight to the vendors.

At this point, Brock stepped in and urged Cupples to work through department heads to get technical information and data from vendors, as the supervisors had done in past boards, so contracted companies are not confused on who to speak within county government.

Brock went further, saying he'd been getting reports from vendors and companies who do business with the county that Cupples' "constant phone calls" over the last 18 months have resulted in complaints and confusion. Brock's comments prompted the following exchange:

Brock: "It's getting dang confusing with a lot of our vendors with you making the (phone) calls, and I would be working with (IT directory) Cilia (Robertson) and Ryan (Eaton) because this isn't your area of expertise at all, it is theirs."

Cupples: " ... I've heard a lot of complaints since I started here, too, Joe (Brock)."

Brock: "Well, that's part of the job there Doug (Cupples), but I'm talking about the vendors personally telling me, I don't care if it's the engineer or the attorneys or who it is, have expressed to me there is confusion on who their dealing with in Jasper County. ...."

Cupples then said he felt satisfied his point to digitally streamline budgets and timesheets was already in the works, but before he moved on, the chairperson vented more frustration with Brock.

Cupples: "... And as far as vendors go, Joe (Brock), when you make general statements like that, it's super frustrating. You're making a generalized statement about some things that ...

Brock: "Don't talk to me about frustration Doug."

Annex

Despite the tension, the supervisors did come to a decision during last week's tense meeting. They decided not to seek bids on work at the Jasper County Annex Building until late fall.

The Annex was not originally on the meeting's agenda, but the topic came up while discussing 2018 capital maintenance projects, and a possibly being $150,000 over a budget amount for a courthouse foundation tuckpointing project after seeing results from a Shive-Hattery engineering cost analysis.

According to county maintenance staff, they won't know exact numbers on the tuckpointing until bids are returned. But this conversation was used as a segue way to bring up the approximately $750,000 in repairs need for the Annex.

Brock and supervisor Denny Carpenter, R-Reasnor, came together and concluded if the county advertised for bids during the height of construction season to complete work on the building's foundation during the winter, cost for the work would be significantly higher.

This would effectively push off any decision on Annex repairs to the next board which will be seated in January of 2019.

Brock and Carpenter's decision was in contrast to Cupples and was met by a contrary opinion by Jasper County Building and Grounds Manager Adam Sparks.

"We went on that advice for the (courthouse) lighting project, and that advice got us nowhere and the same price we would have got regardless," Sparks said. "In my opinion — I'm not on a side here — with no decision, we strapping the board and with a decision we're going to strap and a new board. Whatever decision you guys make or don't make today you are strapping the new board with going ahead with the Annex or the new board is going to come in here and the first decision they're going to have to make is a ($750,000) decision."

Auditor clerk

An ongoing conversation whether or not to fill the open clerk's position in the auditor's office again made for tension between Cupples and Auditor's Office staff.

County Auditor Dennis Parrott brought the issue to the board for a second week, hoping to convince Cupples and Carpenter to fill the position. Carpenter said when comparing other county's auditor staff serving similar populations, he thought the position could be absorbed with continued cross training.

Parrott and other county staff argued other factors should be considered, such as Jasper County's lack of a GIS employee now handled by the auditor's office. Brock motioned to fill the empty position, but it died for lack of support from Cupples or Carpenter.

The situation prompted a comment from Jasper County Sheriff John Halferty.

"I will talk with all three of you privately, but I would strongly request you support filling the position in the auditor's (office)," he said. "I have the most employees, I have the most complicated payroll and I don't know enough about real estate, but they are our go-to people. The amount of work they do, the amount of figuring and payroll they do for us, I can't thank them enough."

The supervisors will reconvene at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday at the Jasper County Courthouse for their next weekly meeting.

Contact Mike Mendenhall at mmendenhall@newtondailynews.com