Jeanine Turner, former county library coordinator, accused the county of harassment and unfair treatment leading up to her firing. File Photo by Terry Witt.
Written by Jeanine Turner:
I am writing in response to an article published in Spotlight on Levy County Government, referencing a meeting held on June 10, 2020. The meeting was regarding library purchases made through Quill.com. County Coordinator Wilbur Dean, Human Resources Manager Jacqueline Martin and myself, (Jeanine Turner, Library Services Coordinator) were in attendance.
I have been fortunate enough to have worked for the Levy County Library System for the last 19+ years. During these 19+ years, I have worked every aspect of the system with extreme professionalism. I have always thought of the entire staff as community servants and, as many of your readers will know, the Levy County Library staff serves the community far beyond expectation. When the county was still doing annual evaluations, I never received less than straight A’s. I have never been so much as spoken to for unacceptable behavior in any way. I was the Administrative Assistant under 3 Directors until ultimately with structural changes through the State Library I was eligible for the director position. I would think that no one would intentionally sabotage their professional career and flawless working reputation for something so minor.
With that being said, and again after reading your article, I was compelled to clarify some misrepresentations regarding my departure and inform you and your readers of the history of events that have occurred over the last 8 months which I believe brought us to where we are now.
On September 16, 2019, I made a request, via email, to the county coordinator to discuss our desire to discontinue the collection of fines/fees. The handling of said funds were in direct violation of County Policy LCP 5.5 & LCP 5.6, as well as the loss to the library budget of $12K due to the processing of these funds by staff. I did not receive a response. On October 7, 2019, I sent an email to County Coordinator Wilbur Dean, County Attorney Anne Brown, Library Liaison/County Commissioner Lilly Rooks, Human Resources Manager Jacqueline Martin, Director of Finance Jared Blanton and finance staff. The email was to discuss, once again, our desire to discontinue the collection of fines/fees. I received 2 responses which were from the county attorney and director of finance. The issue of the policy violation was deflected, in my opinion, by an investigation of library purchases/in-house inventory. For 4 months the Library System was under investigation for what I believe was missing/misused items. We were never told what sparked the investigation, but those who were investigating were quite aggressive. Procurement Coordinator Alecia Tretheway and Parks and Recreation Director Matt Weldon performed the investigation. Surprisingly the staff member that performs the inventory checks for the county from the clerk’s office was not in attendance, nor was any member of the Human Resources Department. Ms. Tretheway and Mr. Weldon went around the county to the 5 branch libraries taking pictures and rummaging through closets, backrooms, money drawers, etc. with managers present but left clueless. Per the Managers, the two of them (conducting the investigation) either lied about which department they were from or what they were doing. Their presence made all staff extremely uncomfortable. While libraries were being picked apart, administrative staff members were being interrogated at least twice for over an hour each time, ultimately finding no violation. At the conclusion of this unnecessary, unprofessional and inappropriate investigation one staff member was given a 4th degree write up and 4 days leave without pay for not cooperating with an investigation, which was nonsense given that staff member(s) offered their assistance on multiple occasions throughout this investigation to no avail.
Unfortunately, the harassment and unfair treatment did not stop there. Administrative staff is now required to take pictures of items, give unreasonable details, etc. when requesting payment of bills by the Finance Department. Library items are being monitored (regardless of the policy which contradicts the monitoring by procurement). This is not the procedure for all departments. Finance staff changed codes and questioned items daily. When I forwarded these harassing emails to the human resources manager, I was given no guidance nor a response at all. On one occasion the human resources manager and county coordinator came to the library headquarters unannounced, with more paperwork questioning a monitor, which was on my desk. Included in their paperwork was a picture of a staff member’s residence and a printout of the legal description which in my opinion was inappropriate and unnecessary. When they went to leave I expressed my concern over our office being targeted. I was told not to think like that; that we simply needed to avoid triggers. Triggers? When asked, they could not define triggers.
The harassment continued daily leading to the issue with Quill.com. When this occurred I was questioned by the human resources manager and county coordinator. The first question they asked was to explain how Quill coupons work since they had no previous knowledge. The library system’s use of Quill .com was authorized years ago by Director Bonnie Tollofson, not by the county coordinator as he did not hold that position at that time. Since then, as a system, we have always taken advantage of quill coupons (to include quill cash). We received free items and used them for giveaways for FLA raffles, for volunteers as well as office staff. This has been common practice in the Library System for many years. When personal items were purchased they were paid for by that staff member, otherwise, they were paid for with State Aid Grant Funds (which are applied for by the Library Director). Coffee is an approved item through State Aid. The items received, including quill cash, are noted on all pages of the corresponding invoices. These invoices are viewed by at the very least 5 people, including the county coordinator and procurement coordinator (per his statement) daily. I simply do not understand, after 10 years of doing the same thing, how anyone would think it was anything else but common practice never imagining it was not permitted.
For your information, I think it is important to point out the Library System is one of the few (if not the only) Department that does not receive their operating funds by the County. The funds that allow the system to operate are from a grant that is specifically for libraries. The State Aid to library grants is applied for by the library staff. The County pays staff wages/benefits and the Cities and Women’s Club provides the buildings and some utilities.
I stand by my words and am firm in the fact that I did not violate County Policy by following a practice commonly used in our System.
Levy County government was asked to provide a response. The statement below is the county’s response.
“The county stands by its action and we have no other comment,” said Human Resources Director Jacqueline Martin.
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Enterprise Reporting by Terry Witt June 26, 2020; Posted June 26, 2020
