The head of Butler County’s finance department has threatened to sue the county, saying he’s been repeatedly threatened and berated by Commissioner Cindy Carpenter (photo – below right) and has been denied a promised pay raise, according to a report from the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Below is a portion of that report:
Pete Landrum, who is director of the Office of Budget and Finance as well as assistant county administrator, has hired the same lawyer who recently won settlements for female county managers involving pay inequity.
In a letter obtained by The Enquirer, attorney Elizabeth S. Loring called Landrum a whistleblower and said that he would take “appropriate legal steps” if commissioners “take further adverse action against him.”
Loring alluded to alleged harassment by Carpenter, including statements she made to Landrum earlier this year that she would like to fire everyone in the office, including Landrum and “line them up and shoot them.”
Loring also said Landrum’s complaints and remarks to the press regarding the county’s budget shortfall have been the focus of hostility from Carpenter.
“Her actions against him range from unreasonable and arbitrary requests for information and defaming him in public meetings to verbal abuse and threatening his job security. Ms. Carpenter does not subject Mr. Landrum’s peers to this level of scrutiny and mistreatment,” Loring said in the letter.
“The latest of these attacks followed Mr. Landrum’s expressed concerns that health care costs owed in 2012 would not be reflected in the actual budget at Ms. Carpenter’s request.”
Carpenter said she remains dissatisfied with Landrum’s performance. She gave him a written reprimand on a number of alleged issues.
In a two-page, single-spaced e-mail statement that Carpenter sent to The Enquirer, she said she does not think Landrum is responsive enough to her requests for information, has talked to the press about budget matters before he tells commissioners and has made some budgeting decisions on his own and beyond the scope of his authority.
“He doesn’t understand he is not a county commissioner,” Carpenter said.
For the entire story, visit Cincinnati.com’s post “Butler Co. official may sue commissioner.”
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