By Brian Wright | Casa Grande Dispatch
While Chicago might be the famed city for government corruption, Pinal County has its own troubled past and present when it comes to politics.
County Manager Fritz Behring pulled no punches when talking about multiple topics, including the political climate of the county, at a Superstition Mountain
Republican Club meeting at the Feedbag restaurant in Apache Junction Tuesday night.
Behring’s main topic during a speech and subsequent question-and-answer period was the results of an audit of the county’s jail contract with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. The audit, released late last month, found Pinal County has lost millions of dollars due to the contract — about $12 million alone in general fund money in five years.
Behring, who was hired as county manager in November 2010, said it was just one glaring example of issues that have haunted Pinal County government for years, including corruption, nepotism and a general lack of accountability among county staff.
“The organizational culture of Pinal County has been very entrenched,” he said. “When I (first) came here, I made a comment in the Maricopa Monitor, and I almost thought I was going to get fired over it.”
In that article, Behring called Pinal County’s government “the most dysfunctional government I’ve ever worked for.” It wasn’t a light statement coming from a man with almost 25 years of government management experience at the time.
After receiving heat from the Board of Supervisors for his statement, Behring said the people he really trusted and relied on told him, “You’re exactly right. Nobody’s ever said it before.”
A lot of his employees, Behring said, were related to each other, which created an atmosphere where there was little accountability.
“We had lots of employees not hired on their merits, not hired on their abilities or their skill sets; they’re hired (based) on who they’re related to, who their uncle was, if their daddy was a supervisor, or their mother was a former elected official or they’re the relative of some important person,” he said.
Behring said that is less of an issue now, as the county has made it a priority to hire the most qualified people instead of the most connected.
Behring’s most recent job before Pinal was working in county management in Florida’s Clay County. When he first took the job in Pinal, many people told him he was crazy for taking a job in a place so tainted by cor- ruption. Behring didn’t believe it at first but said he eventually found it to be true.
An audience member asked Behring if he had seen newspaper articles from the past that showed the “garbage” county residents were fed for years before he arrived in Pinal.
“This county was so crooked, it was pathetic,” he said.
Behring said he was well aware of the county’s past but added it doesn’t matter if the people in charge are Democrats or Republicans. He said corruption can permeate a county government regardless of party affiliation.
Pinal was a Democratic stronghold for its entire history until the 2008 election cycle. The current board of supervisors, elected in November, has Republicans in four of its five seats. Republicans won every county job in the November election except for that of one supervisor and the county treasurer.
Shortly after getting hired, Behring found out a county employee had falsified a bid document on a federal grant for the county’s long-term care facility. It was a part-time employee who Behring said he didn’t hold accountable because he knew she was told by her superiors to falsify the bid.
Behring brought in the employee’s two superiors, whom he called “well-paid managers,” to question them about the incident. One of the managers told Behring she did it and would do it again and told him she thought he was wasting her time.
“This is Pinal County; what are you going to do to me?” she scoffed.
After his talk with both managers, both of them asked Behring if the verbal counseling they had just received was their punishment. It wasn’t.
Behring brought in the bosses of the two managers to tell them what was happening.
“I want these two people out of here by close of business today, and if they’re not fired, you’re fired as a supervisor,” he told them.
Behring spent a good deal of time talking about the jail contract with ICE, which he said he will renegotiate with the federal government as soon as a federal budget freeze is lifted from the Department of Homeland Security.
The contract was negotiated by former County Manager Stan Griffis in 2004 and signed by his successor, Terry Doolittle, in 2006. Griffis later spent nearly three years in prison for numerous convictions, including stealing more than $400,000 in highway improvement funds from the county.
Behring said it should have been clear from the beginning the ICE contract was a failure.
“Everybody believed the mis- information. Nobody took the time to look at it,” Behring said.
Behring said he believes some high-level officials knew the contract was costing the county millions but chose not to say anything. Others, he believes, were kept in the dark.
“This is a painful process to go through, but it’s an important process because I truly believe when you make a mistake in government, the best thing you can do is admit it, identify what happened, and take the steps to make sure it doesn’t continue in the future,” he said.
District 5 Supervisor Todd House, who was in the audience, said he doesn’t think Behring received enough support from the board in the past to fix some of the county’s problems. He said he hopes the new board is more “united” in helping
Behring accomplish his goals.
Behring also said the county must manage its money better and control spending so it can eventually become competitive with the other 14 counties in the state when it comes to property tax rates. Pinal County has the second-highest primary property tax rate in Arizona.
“Pinal County does a lot of things right; don’t get me wrong . . . but we can improve in a lot of ways, and we have to become more efficient,” Behring said.
