ST. LOUIS 鈥 Sheriff Alfred Montgomery鈥檚 decision to fire more than a dozen staffers as he took office has cost the city nearly a half-million dollars in benefit payouts, the city鈥檚 finance chief says.
Now those departures are helping fuel a budget deficit Montgomery says is threatening his office鈥檚 ability to transport inmates, a key duty of the city sheriff.
Comptroller Donna Baringer said Friday that the city was required by law to pay the workers their accrued leave when they left the sheriff鈥檚 office and that Montgomery should have known that.
鈥淗e fired all those people,鈥 Baringer said in an interview, 鈥渁nd that was what we owed them.鈥
The information could add to the pressure on Montgomery as he prepares to appear before the Board of Aldermen鈥檚 budget committee on Monday morning. He already had some explaining to do after threatening to stop driving city jail detainees to and from hospitals for medical care unless the city boosts his budget, a threat Mayor Cara Spencer criticized last week as an abdication of his duty.
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But the letter he sent to officials last week blamed his office鈥檚 budget problems on the previous sheriff and the comptroller鈥檚 office, saying they approved payouts before he took over in January and left him with the fallout. And he has questioned whether the payouts, which he has said were for vacation, sick and 鈥渃omp鈥 time, should have been made at all. He has said his office is investigating.
Baringer鈥檚 information points the finger back at Montgomery.
Jack Gieseke, a spokesman for Montgomery, said the office disagreed with Baringer鈥檚 assessment. The senior employees, he said, should not have been eligible for comp time at the very least.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 know where she would get that,鈥 Gieseke said.
The new sheriff, 28, has been buffeted by controversy since taking office in January. He has been criticized for ordering the handcuffing of a top jail official, which prompted a federal investigation. He has been sued after telling a deputy to roll golden dice for his job. He has raised eyebrows with the purchase of $12,000 worth of used golf carts and the creation of a new no-gossip policy, which promptly leaked to the media.
But the payouts to senior staffers, to whom Montgomery gave the boot, may be the most tangible trouble he has encountered so far. Such a sum goes a long way toward explaining why the sheriff鈥檚 office was on track to overspend its budget by $635,000 as of early May. And if it leads to problems getting city jail inmates to the hospital when they need it, it could be a problem for a jail trying to improve health care service after years of problems.
It鈥檚 hardly the first time a new elected official has cost the city money. Recorder of Deeds Michael Butler agreed to pay $108,000 to settle a lawsuit by four employees he fired after he took office. Former Sheriff Vernon Betts said that when he replaced longtime Sheriff Jim Murphy in 2017, five senior officials left. Paying out their accrued benefits cost $90,000, he said.
But Montgomery鈥檚 $491,000 tab may take the cake.
He started talking about firings , shortly after narrowly defeating Betts for the job. He said he wanted to rebuild the leadership team . Then in early December, Montgomery delivered letters to several of Betts鈥 lieutenants, captains and majors telling them they would be terminated when he was sworn in on Jan. 1.
Betts, the former sheriff, said 17 people ultimately got the boot. Many of the people being let go had spent decades in the office, meaning they had a lot of vacation and other leave built up that had to be paid out.
In public comments and a letter to officials since then, Montgomery has cast the payouts as suspicious. He told aldermen May 13 that his office had begun investigating the payouts and asked the state auditor for help. He wrote in the letter Tuesday that the comp time payouts had created a 鈥渟evere budget crisis,鈥 which he cited as one reason the city corrections department would have to start driving jail inmates to and from hospitals 鈥渦nless and until additional resources are made available to our department.鈥
He also said the payments raised 鈥渟erious questions that the public deserves to have answered.鈥
But Betts, the former sheriff, said the payouts were predictable. And transporting detainees is the sheriff鈥檚 job, he said, because jail guards don鈥檛 have the training to do it.
鈥淗e is not in touch with reality,鈥 Betts said.
A tornado devastated the 果酱视频 area on May 16, and much of the following week was spent picking up the pieces. Volunteers turned out and the road to recovery began. View the week in 果酱视频 through the Post-Dispatch photographers' lenses. Edited by Jenna Jones.
