August 19, 2025, Camden County Commission meeting at 1:00 p.m.

I attended the August 19, 2025, Camden County Commission meeting at 1:00 p.m.

All commissioners were present.

The first agenda item was “Road Name Change – Villages Harbor.”

The owner wanted to change the road name from Villages Harbor to Lakeside Drive. 911 Addressing usually makes sure there are no address conflicts with duplication of road names so I was a little surprised this change was approved.

Nobody was present for or against the change.

The Commission approved this road name change unanimously.

The second agenda item was “Presentation & Consideration of RFP for Health Dept.”

The Commission will be sending out a Request For Proposal for a new 10,000 square foot Camden County Health Department building located near the courthouse where the “Rock House” is currently.

Presiding Commissioner Skelton was concerned about how the county would pay for the building? So far, they have not been able to find any grants which might help fund the construction.

Commissioner Gohagan reminded the Commission that the recent courthouse remodel cost $4.5 million and the bond that funded it will cost the county $8 million over twenty years.

The County Auditor said the building could be funded with a bond or a lease-purchase.

The Commission approved the RFP and voted to publish it.

The last agenda item was “Time Card Fraud Enforcement.”

Presiding Commissioner Skelton said that an employee sent a complaint to the Commission that certain county employees are getting paid for working days when they were not present at work at the courthouse.

Skelton was asked how the complainant would know that the people were not working even though they were away from the office?

Human Resources Director Pamela Dunham explained to the Commission that the employees mentioned in the complaint did not clock in repeatedly and are missing from work on the same days every week, but stating that they are at work.

Commissioner Dougan asked if these employees clock in on the days when they are there?

Dunham responded that the employees in question don’t clock in. The officials who supervise them are entering their time for them.

Dougan said that it seemed it would be up to the elected officials how they wanted to run their offices and their payroll.

Presiding Commissioner Skelton clarified that there were still rules that needed to be followed. Employees needed to work the hours for which they were being paid.

County Assessor Marty McGuire explained that his time card template in the payroll system makes it hard for him to accurately record the correct hours his employees work. He has no flexibility to adjust or change his time card templates. He has been told that he can change his time card templates so it would better reflect the hours they work.

HR Director Dunham confirmed with McGuire that the County Assessor employees only work 4 days a week. His current template is set up to show them working 7 hours a day, 4 days a week. Unfortunately, they actually work longer than that each day.

County Auditor Laughlin explained that there has been a lot of turnover in Payroll in the past five years and the time system has been an ongoing issue throughout that time. To make things more complicated, the county’s current time system (NOVAtime) will be replaced by a new system in March.

The Maintenance Supervisor explained that in the Maintenance Department, the employees clock in on the computer and enter their own time and the supervisor approves their time.

The Sheriff confirmed that his employees clock in with a fingerprint approval system.

Commissioners Gohagan and Skelton mentioned that they were considering a time clock system that would allow employees to check in and out at the building doorways.

Byron Willis, the County Assessor’s Deputy, asked how employees would clock in if they started work from home like some Road and Bridge employees?

County Assessor Marty McGuire and Human Resources Director Pamela Dunham began to get into an argument over this issue:

McGuire: On the clock in, to Eddie [Maintenance Supervisor], when we started this, we were asked and we didn’t…when I came into office eight years ago, I had a time clock in my office and it was a Goddamn mess. Absolute mess. She’s [Pam Dunham] going to have to take care of all those messes of not clocking in and clocking out. I will not touch it or alter it. If we go to time clocks, I’m not altering it. I will not touch it. So every punch in and punch out, these two over here can do [indicating HR].

Dunham: I’m happy to do it.

McGuire: Because apparently, they have a problem…theirselves. Apparently, these two over there have a problem.

Skelton: I don’t know that they have a problem…

McGuire: I think they do.

Willis: Somebody’s gone and tattling and has so much time to see what everyone else is doing, you know.

Dunham: It’s just that it’s our responsibility as the employer to keep accurate time card records.

McGuire (Interrupting): You don’t employ my employees, young lady. I employ them.

Dunham: As the employer, the county, the county is supposed to keep accurate time card records.

McGuire: I’m sorry, but I was elected as an official

Dunham: Sure.

McGuire: …from the public.

Dunham: Sure.

McGuire: Same as all these other people..

Dunham: Yeah.

McGuire: …to do it. You were not.

Dunham: I think the public, as a taxpayer, I think that it’s right that we have…

Presiding Commissioner Skelton interrupted and instructed the attendees to address the Commission.

Assessor McGuire explained that if the time card templates for his office were correct, they could use the system. He has asked before for assistance to have his templates set up properly. Assessor McGuire said that if his time card templates could be set up properly, the system would work.

Skelton stressed that his primary concern was that county employees should be paid for the hours they work. They need to get the time card system fixed so the hours worked match the hours paid.

Captain Vinson from the Sheriff’s Office explained that there is a mobile application for the phone that allows employees to clock in when they are not at the office. The Maintenance Department is also able to have its employees sign in at various hours on a computer and the Supervisor simply approves the recorded time.

The Auditor explained that in the past, automatic lunches were built into the time schedules so employees didn’t have to worry about clocking in and out for lunch.

Stacy Kinney, the Recorder’s Deputy, asked why the issue of someone complaining about employees not accurately recording work hours was brought up at a public meeting instead of being addressed with the elected office holder who was responsible for the employees?

Presiding Commissioner Skelton explained that this issue was being discussed at a public meeting because it was thought that the county might need to purchase a time clock system that would cost $21,000 and any discussion of a potential purchase over $12,000 had to be presented in a public meeting.

Commissioner Gohagan began to discuss the complaint itself, but the County Attorney indicated through various hand signals and facial expressions that would have made a third base coach proud the need to limit discussion of any details of the complaint itself. (Missouri statute has very explicit whistleblower protections for public employees who file complaints.)

There was further discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of having employees clock in and out using physical time clocks. Assessor McGuire explained that he significantly reduced overtime costs in his office when he took over. His deputy, Byron Willis, mentioned that they weren’t going to close up the office when they have citizens who took off from work to come get assistance just because it might be closing time for the day.

McGuire stressed that the payroll time templates are the main problem for him.

Skelton asked the elected officials if they could fix the problem without buying time clocks? They agreed that they could. It seemed like the biggest issue for most of the county employees present was that if people had a problem with the time status of employees, they should address it with the elected officials instead of filing anonymous complaints.

That was the end of the agenda, but then Commissioner Dougan wanted to bring up some Old Business.

Dougan wanted to switch the Camden County Emergency Management Agency over to the Sheriff’s Office. Skelton thought the EMA job could be more of a part time position. Sheriff Edgar said that the current EMA Director (John Scheper) recently worked on the radio system to help the deputies communicate with the fire departments on an incident. The Sheriff confirmed that he would be willing to absorb the EMA position since they already work together closely with EMA.

Skelton preferred having the EMA as more of a civilian position.

Commissioner Gohagan explained that he had asked the EMA Director to produce a tornado, earthquake, and fire plan for the county buildings by the end of the year. Gohagan asked Dougan how close EMA was to finishing those plans?

Commissioner Dougan praised Scheper for his efforts to coordinate with the other first responder agencies in the county.

Gohagan said he understood that Scheper would rather be under the Sheriff, but he didn’t think that would be the best solution for the county.

After a quick discussion of Camden County history, it appeared that the EMA used to be under the Sheriff, but the Sheriff and the EMA Director didn’t get along, so EMA was moved to the Commission’s supervision.

Presiding Commissioner Skelton explained that they can’t pass any motions for this issue at this meeting because it wasn’t on the agenda, but it could be formally addressed at a later meeting.

And that was that.

It sound like the issue of the time system might be fixed with some modifications of the existing software. It’s never good if there’s a perception that some employees are getting paid for hours when they’re not at work. Chances are that this isn’t what’s actually happening.

It also raises a question of what falls under the purview of the Human Resources Department and what is the responsibility of the various elected officials. The elected officials have their own budgets, hire their own employees, and are responsible for the day-to-day operation of their departments. However, it seems like the whole reason the county has a centralized Human Resources Department is to ensure that broad employment practices like payroll, healthcare, safe workplace environments, and countywide policies are being enforced. If an elected official is sued, the county has to bear the burden and liability, not just the elected official.

Accurate time records are important. Let’s say an employee comes in on their normal day off and their county boss tells them to take Monday off to make up for it. Or an employee works a few extra hours so the county boss lets them go home early the next day. We used to call this “flexing.”

The time record still shows the employee working their normal days and hours and the accrued time remains the same. The county boss doesn’t have to go to the trouble of making a time card adjustment in the system. However, the time record shows the employee working when the employee is actually off.

During their off duty “flex” time, while driving to the grocery store, that county employee gets into a terrible traffic accident that causes serious injuries and loss. The first question those other parties are going to want to know when they find out the at-fault party works for the county is if they were on the clock. And nobody is going to care if somebody flexed off or on because the county policy is probably pretty clear about how you get paid. They’re only going to care if the employee was getting paid. And they’ll definitely want to seek out the deeper pocketbook of the county. Never happen? Believe me, it happens.

When it comes to risk assessment, if something is predictable, it is preventable.