By Sasha Hupka || The Arizona Republic
Weeks after vote tallying errors came to light in Pinal County, supervisors are reluctantly giving up on getting their money back from former Elections Director Virginia Ross.
The idea initially was floated during the Board of Supervisors’ first meeting of the year, when Supervisor Kevin Cavanaugh said he wanted to speak with his fellow elected officials and county staff about recovering the money.
But Pinal County Attorney Kent Volkmer told the board Feb. 1 that Ross largely fulfilled the terms and conditions of her contract and that going after her $25,000 performance bonus wasn’t legally wise.
“The likelihood of being successful is minuscule at best, and we would likely expend more resources litigating that issue than we would recoup even in the event that we won,” Volkmer said. “And, in the event that we lost, we would essentially be paying out even further finances.”
The decision comes after a 500-vote discrepancy between certified election tallies and recounted results came to light in December. Ross’ bonus was paid before the counting problems were known to supervisors.
With staff input, the supervisors are now putting the issue of her compensation to bed. But that doesn’t mean all of them are happy about it.
“This issue was brought up by the public, knowing that it’s not likely that you go and claw back a bonus. But people are naturally concerned that we didn’t do an election quite right,” Cavanaugh said.
Later, in response to a question from Supervisor Jeff McClure accusing him of “innuendo and conspiracy theory,” Cavanaugh clarified that by saying the election was not “quite right,” he was referring to the undercount.
