Commission approves up to $15k increase for sheriff’s investigation fund
Commissioners adjourned to executive session to discuss litigation, but took a vote immediately after they returned to increase the sheriff’s investigations budget. No public discussion took place.
The Albany County Commissioners are giving the Sheriff’s Office up to $15,000 to conduct an investigation related to ongoing or pending litigation.
It’s difficult to say more than that about the new appropriation because commissioners only discussed it behind closed doors.
Near the conclusion of the commission’s first regular meeting this month, the three commissioners voted to enter executive session. When elected boards move from public to executive session, they must cite the provision in state statute allowing them to meet privately.
Wyoming law allows elected officials to go into executive session for a variety of reasons. They can, for example, discuss potential real estate purchases in private, because public discussion on the topic could impact the final deal. Other acceptable topics for closed door meetings include discussions about personnel or about litigation.
On Jan. 3, when the Albany County Commission voted to enter executive session, Commissioner Sue Ibarra cited statute 16-4-405(a)(iii) specifically — allowing the commissioners to discuss “litigation to which the governing body is a party or proposed litigation to which the governing body may be a party.”
The executive session lasted 13 minutes. When commissioners returned, they voted to give Albany County Sheriff Aaron Appelhans up to $15,000 to supplement his office’s investigations budget.
In other words, the commission adjourned to executive session to discuss litigation, but took a vote immediately after they returned to increase the sheriff’s investigations budget.
The investigations budget for the current fiscal year was previously set at $7,000 — meaning the new appropriation from commissioners represents a more than 200 percent increase for the line item in question.
There was no public discussion about how the $15,000 would be spent or why it was needed.
Commission Chair Pete Gosar would not say what the sheriff is investigating or whether the investigation is internal or external in nature. Nor would he share any details on the related litigation.
“We’ve got a court docket that’s pretty full right now and I don’t know that anybody anticipated that being that full,” Gosar told the Laramie Reporter.
Wyoming attorney Bruce Moats, who specializes in media law and represents the Wyoming Press Association, said at least some of the commissioners’ conversation should have taken place in public.
“It begs the question of … how a discussion of giving more money to the sheriff or investigation budget fits under ‘litigation.’ On the face, it appears not to,” he said. “There needs to be more explanation of what took place here, because adding to the budget is not a reason where you could have a session closed to the public. It’s just not. If it somehow required some discussion of a particular case, then that discussion of the particular case is okay in executive session. If you start transferring into: ‘Should we add more budget?” then that’s a discussion that should be more open.”
The $15,000 is drawn from the county’s one percent miscellaneous uncommitted fund. That fund had an original budget of $100,000, with about $91,480 remaining before the commission meeting Jan. 3.
“That’s part of the special purpose tax … that allows us to respond to contingencies,” Gosar said. “So unexpected events — like the roof caving in on the courthouse. You don’t expect it to happen, but at some point, you have a 100-year-old building and it could happen. And so it’s a fund you can use should you need something like that — an extraordinary use of resources that would have been hard to anticipate.”
But Gosar added the money awarded to the sheriff last week will go toward “ordinary law enforcement practices.”
“There’s nothing extraordinary about this other than it wasn’t anticipated,” he said.