Leelanau County Administrator Jim Dyer sent a lengthy letter to county commissioners last week, responding in detail to the employee complaint that led the board to place him on paid administrative leave in early June.

The complaint, written by County Finance Director Rio Risbridger, accused Dyer of “financial misconduct, circumvention of board authority, and a pattern of intimidation,” and claimed he put Risbridger in a no-win scenario by discouraging job training and support from the county clerk’s office. The finance director requested her job be modified so she would report directly to the Board of Commissioners rather than to Dyer.

Dyer’s response, which spans 25 pages and more than 13,000 words, pushes back against the allegations, claims the county would be in breach of his employment contract if it were to remove the finance director from his supervision, and suggests most of the issues raised by Risbridger stem from deeper county finance problems long predating his employment.

Regarding the accusations of misconduct, board circumvention, and intimidation, Dyer argued that Risbridger did not provide sufficient evidence to justify such “serious language.”

“What was the misconduct? What specific law was violated? What policy was violated? Was the alleged conduct a legal violation, or merely an accounting disagreement, a management disagreement, or a difficult workplace interaction?” Dyer’s letter asked. “What documents support the accusation? What documents contradict it? None are provided.”

Regarding Risbridger’s “concerns about payroll, reporting errors, accounting controls, contract management, Board authority, and workplace communication,” Dyer suggested all are lingering symptoms of a more foundational problem with county finance. Risbridger, he reasoned, “reaches the conclusion that it is the County Administrator that is responsible for the concerns she raises, despite a lengthy history of external reviews, and internal criticism from past finance directors suggesting that another office is responsible.”

“Another office,” in this case, refers to that of County Clerk Michelle Crocker, which housed the county’s finance and human resources functions before they were split off via board vote in 2021. Despite that decision, Dyer claims the clerk’s office has largely “maintained de facto control” over the finance department in the years since, stalling changes to systems and policies he believes would resolve most of Risbridger’s on-the-job complaints.

“Risbridger identifies real problems: late closes, paper journal entries, compensating controls, gaps in software controls, and a lack of modern reporting,” Dyer wrote. “But her remedy is not modernization, clearer authority, better software, professional supervision, or a clear and direct reporting structure flowing from the County Board. Her remedy is to remove the Finance Director from the Administrator’s supervision, rely again on the Clerk's office, and restore the same practical control structure that produced the problem in the first place.”

Dyer, who came aboard as county administrator last spring, wrote in his letter that the “constant refrain” he’s heard from the clerk’s office “in response to any attempt to modernize the finance function” is “We have never done that before.” This “long-standing neglect of modernization,” he argued, is to blame for the challenges Risbridger has faced in getting up to speed on the county’s financial operations.

Risbridger did criticize the county’s antiquated finance procedures in her complaint, calling out the “unimaginable” number of financial errors she uncovered in the course of the job and claiming a workload of 50-55 hours per week. The situation caused friction with Dyer when Risbridger suggested seeking assistance from Crocker and Chief Clerk Jennifer Zywicki, who Dyer confessed in his letter he does not trust.

Among other things, Dyer’s letter accuses Crocker and Zywicki of exerting influence over former finance director Cathy Hartesvelt (herself a former clerk’s office employee), “constant interference with the operations of other departments” (including Crocker supposedly pitting “subordinates against their supervisors to extend her influence beyond the clerk’s office”), and pursuing “reputation destroying” vendettas against county leaders who have challenged them. One section of the letter claims County Treasurer John Gallagher, former County Administrator Deb Allen, and former finance directors Jared Prince and Sean Cowan were all “viciously attacked when they tried to bring change” to how county finance operated. “Now it’s my turn,” Dyer added.

Dyer also alleges that, last December “Hartesvelt tried to schedule a meeting with Gallagher and Zywicki,” with the intention of conspiring to get him fired.

“Gallagher told me the meeting was to discuss how to get the fourth Commissioner vote to terminate my employment,” Dyer wrote. “Hartesvelt claimed it was only to discuss alternatives to managing possible excessive health care costs. She could not explain to me either why Zywicki was included, or why I was excluded from this meeting even though this decision was my responsibility.”

Dyer’s letter concluded by acknowledging that “Risbridger's complaint deserves review” by the Board of Commissioners, but suggesting it “should not be allowed to become a vehicle for dismantling the administrative structure the Board put in place [and] has tried to implement for over five years.”

“The complaint itself confirms the problem,” Dyer wrote. “The Finance Department has been operating with weak controls, delayed reporting, manual processes, and is institutional (sic) dependent on others who refuse to cede control. Those problems were recognized before I arrived, and they are exactly the problems I was hired and expected to address. The board should not confuse the discomfort of reform with evidence of misconduct. It should not treat resistance from the old system as proof that the reformer is the problem.”

Dyer’s full rebuttal can be read here.

The Board of Commissioners will meet in special session at 9:30am this Thursday, July 9 “to receive and discuss a confidential attorney/client privileged written communication from the County’s corporation counsel.” Multiple sources have indicated to The Ticker that the communication in question concerns the internal investigation into Dyer.