Jefferson County assessor sues Judge Gerald Robinson for $750,000 in damages over employees not being paid

JEFFERSON COUNTY, Ark. – A growing controversy in Jefferson County has led to a lawsuit over the county’s failure to pay employees.

Assessor Gloria Tillman is suing Judge Gerald Robinson over county employees’ unpaid wages. The lawsuit was filed in the county’s circuit court on April 30, the same day wages were not distributed.

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The lawsuit, filed as a class action to represent all the employees impacted, states that Robinson did not authorize payroll “for no legal reason” in violation of the Arkansas Minimum Wage Act.

The suit asks for at least $750,000, both to cover payroll and to pay for damages. The county payroll is approximately $400,000 per month.

Robinson said earlier that he refused to sign the payroll claim authorizing payroll distribution because of two names on the claim, both employees of the assessor’s office. The first person filed a claim for accumulated sick leave, and the second is a relative of Tillman’s. In total the payroll impact of the two is $4,866.65.

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In a Wednesday afternoon email, Tillman explained the situation with the two employees in her office

The first was an employee who had an accumulated sick leave claim from a 48-year county employee who had a short break in her employment while an elected official. Her sick leave claim was from January through April for time “she had rightly accumulated” while an employee, Tillman wrote.

The second employee is a relation of Tillmans’ she admitted, but was employed by her office before she was elected and did not report to her, both in keeping with county law. Tillman said she had checked with Robinson before assuming office and had been told at the time that having a relative in the office under those terms was not a problem.

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Robinson has claimed that the accumulated sick leave is past the time it can be claimed and that a relative of an elected official may not work in that official’s office.

Robinson initially filed a court order removing the two from the payroll, but County Clerk Shawndra Taggart said in a Monday email that neither she nor the judge are empowered to “remove or change any elected official’s payroll submission for their employees.”

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On May 1, the day after the originally scheduled payday, Robinson issued an order to pay county employees using paper checks but to withhold the checks for the two employees he is disputing.

On Wednesday afternoon, Taggert said she could not honor the judge’s order withholding the two checks and instead distributed all employee checks to department heads, including Tillman in the assessor’s office.

Photos of county offices show many empty as employees did not show up for work on Wednesday.

This same dispute led to the county almost missing its April 15 payday for the same reason. In that case, Robinson relented and signed the claim just in time for that payday to take place.

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