Highlands Today
Email
Print
Flowers Reprimanded For Electronic Messages
THREE FIRED EMPLOYEESFILE GRIEVANCES
File photo
David Flowers
ADVERTISEMENT
Published: January 31, 2008
SEBRING — David Flowers, director of Highlands County's facilities management, was given a written reprimand late Thursday afternoon for his improper use of county instant messaging.
Assistant County Administrator Rick Helms ruled that Flowers sent only three "inappropriate" messages on his county computer. Flowers sent a total of 64 instant messages during the past six months, he added.
"There were three messages that contained some inappropriate content, but none were of an obvious sexual nature," Helms said. "One of those three messages was a discussion about paint."
The discussion about paint was not obviously sexual, but it contained sexual innuendo, Helms said.
That conversation was between Flowers and fired county employee Treasa Handley, the former coordinator of non ad-valorem assessments.
Handley was fired Monday. Also fired with her, and also for improper use of instant messaging, were two of her colleagues in the budget department: former budget analyst Jared Lee and former budget technician Christine Edwards.
All three fired employees filed grievances Thursday in an attempt to overturn their dismissals.
County Administrator Carl Cool will rule on the three grievances.
'A Black Eye' For County Government
County Commissioner Guy Maxcy said he was "disgusted" by some of the instant messages he saw which were written on county computers during county work time by the three fired workers.
"It's a sad day for this county," Maxcy said about the instant-message scandal. "The county has a black eye."
"It gives county employees a black eye, and what they (Handley, Lee and Edwards) were saying in some of those messages is despicable," he added.
"But," Maxcy added, "we need to move on, we have a lot of important things to do. And I want to say this: "We have 400-plus employees, and the actions of these three people should not cast clouds over
the good employees that we have."
The three fired employees combined for more than 9,000 instant messages sent on their county computers over the six-month period, Jamison said.
The majority of those messages were personal, instead of for county business, and the majority of the personal messages were sexually explicit, he added.
Besides Handley, Lee, Edwards and Flowers, 18 other employees of the county commissioners were found to have sent inappropriate instant messages on their county computers.
All 18 erred by sending "personal business" instant messages, while they were allowed to use this technology only for official county business, Jamison said. None of the 18 sent instant messages that were sexually explicit or offensive in another way.
Loss In Tax Dollars? Impossible To Pin Down
Bernis Gainer, director of the county's Office of Budget and Management, fired Handley, Lee and Edwards and signed their termination letters.
There is no way to estimate the precise amount of county tax dollars that were lost by the three fired employees sending about 9,000 "inappropriate" instant messages while they were supposed to be earning their county paychecks, Gainer said.
"Some of those instant messages can be 10 words long and could have taken 20 seconds to type and send," Gainer said. "And some of the messages are two or three pages or longer.
"And," he added, "one single instant message of numerous pages could have been worked on, on and off, all day long until it was sent, and that counts as one message."
The highest cost, in lost salary, was suffered by Handley, at $49,954. Lee's loss followed at $45,480, and Edwards' loss was the lowest, at $29,812.
Email
Print
ADVERTISEMENT
Advertisement
TBO.com - Tampa Bay Online Member Agreement | Privacy Statement | Work With Us
