Sedgwick County to share management investigation with U.S. attorney’s office
Sedgwick County Commissioners decided Wednesday to waive attorney-client confidentiality and give the U.S. attorney’s office access to a county-owned investigation report into management practices under former County Manager Michael Scholes.
The report, prepared by outside counsel hired by the commission, was part of an effort to pressure Scholes out of his job. Scholes, who had been given a quit-or-be-fired ultimatum by Commission Chairman David Dennis, quit at the beginning of this month after accepting a $205,000 settlement.
The personnel investigation was ordered by commissioners Dennis, Michael O’Donnell and David Unruh, who said they were trying to end an exodus of key county employees who disliked Scholes’ management style and didn’t want to work for him.
The decision to share the report with the U.S. attorney came after a 30-minute closed session of the commission at the end of Wednesday’s meeting.
Afterward, Unruh said he thinks the report will convince federal authorities that Scholes was pressured to leave because of issues with his management of the county, not because he cooperated with the FBI in its investigation of O’Donnell, who faces federal campaign-finance-fraud charges
“In my opinion, it (the report) will totally invalidate any claim about retaliation against the manager and validate my disapproval of his management style,” Unruh said.
The report has not been publicly released because it includes details of personnel matters, including interviews with Scholes and numerous county employees. The state Open Records Act allows most government personnel records to be exempted from disclosure.
Because the report was prepared by lawyer Stephanie Scheck at the direction of the commission, commissioners could have invoked attorney-client confidentiality as a way to keep it out of the hands of the federal prosecutors.
But the commissioners waived that privilege on a limited basis. They’ll allow the U.S. attorney and/or his staff to review the report at the county counselor’s office, but not to take copies of it with them.
Before the commissioners voted to turn their management report over to the federal prosecutors, Commissioner Richard Ranzau added an amendment that the county also waive attorney confidentiality on a legal memo from December 2017 related to the Scholes case.
The memo was written by then-county counselor Eric Yost in answer to a question by Unruh about whether commissioners could fire Scholes for giving information about them to the FBI.
Yost initially said yes, but then reversed and said it could violate federal whistleblower protection law if they did that.
Unruh said he didn’t care whether they waived privilege on the memo or not, because the U.S. attorney already has it and the contents have been public for weeks.
Yost also has been let go by the county, with a settlement. On Nov. 19, he left in exchange for a $77,000 payment.
