Alexander Mayor welcomes audit; Treasurer, “No Comment”

(Portions of this article may contain opinions from author.)

The loss of one employee at the Alexander Municipal Complex (City Hall) has caused a great disturbance in the Force. And, during an election year when the Mayor is up for re-election, it doesn’t take much for the opposition to seize on an opportunity.

Such is the case with former city employee Melissa Anthony, formerly known as Melissa Ratliff. Anthony wore many hats at city hall. She was the bookkeeper, human resources director and office manager overseeing city hall staff and operations. At least that’s the three we know of.

There was no “Official” announcement of Anthony’s departure. An employee deciding to leave, albeit suddenly, isn’t normally a reason to alert the media. What city would? However, there is speculation that another city employee took it upon themselves to get word to the candidates running in opposition of Mayor Paul Mitchell’s re-election. Which could potentially be, if not definitely, a violation of the city’s employee manual.

One of the candidates running for mayor in the November General Election, Crystal Herrmann, was able to quickly get a copy of Anthony’s pay sheet for January through July 2022. After reviewing the information she posted it on the social media site Nextdoor and proudly proclaimed, “Alexander Mayor allows Human Resources Director to cash in 260 hours of Vacation time along with other checks totaling over $48,000.00 from January 2022 to July 2022.”

When asked for a comment about the situation from Treasurer JoAn Churchill she replied, “No Comment.” However, it is known she is going through Anthony’s office and files to determine where things stand.

During a phone conversation with Mayor Paul Mitchell, who provided some behind the scenes information as to how the processes are designed to function at city hall, he reminded yours truly that employees aren’t paid by check. Since January 1, 2018 Alexander has been using Proliant, Inc. to process direct deposit payments into employee bank accounts. Prior to that the city was using Paychex. So, actually, the Mayor doesn’t “Sign” pay checks. He said he does occasionally review time cards to make sure everyone is arriving on time and taking lunch.

According to Mitchell normally there are two instances when paper checks are used. One is to make the usual monthly payments to the utility companies, or to pay a vendor for purchases such as office supplies, etc.. As it turns out Anthony did not handle accounts payable. According to Mitchell, that duty has been done for the past several years by another employee who meets with him when necessary to have those checks proofed and signed.

The other need for paper checks is to transfer funds, usually from the General Fund to one of the other department funds. This is done either to make up for a coming shortfall due to payroll, or when equipment is to be purchased. Mitchell says this way even though the General Fund is paying for an item needed by one of the city departments the budget will show which department used the money and for what purpose.

As for the Anthony situation and all the accusations bouncing around Nextdoor Mitchell said, “I welcome an audit. The state auditor is still here and maybe he can tell us what happened.”

The real question is how much of what appears on her pay sheet actually went through the direct deposit pay system.