MEMPHIS, Tenn. — County Clerk Wanda Halbert updated county commissioners Wednesday on a corrective action plan they requested after the state comptroller’s office found serious deficiencies.
“Our action plan is to restructure our offices, our salaries,” Halbert told commissioners.
Halbert, who is facing an ouster petition filed by the state, acknowledged the County Clerk’s office has faced challenges.
“I’m disappointed, I’m very angry about how we have to serve our customers,” she said. There are some days where we have lines of customers outside. We don’t have lines because we want to, we have lines because there are no options.”
Halbert is requesting a raise for county clerk’s office employees, saying some of her employees may be making less than Chick-fil-A workers, which she called “ridiculous.” The low pay and high volume of work is leading to high turnover.
“The office of county clerk has really been severely struggling,” Halbert said. “We’re down to bare bones, bare minumums, and our customer base has just blown this out of the water.”
The state comptroller’s office sent auditors to Shelby County earlier this year after county leaders sounded the alarm, saying reports from the clerk’s office were submitted late and contained incorrect information, jeopardizing the county’s budget process.
Halbert described the relationship with the audit team throughout the process as “pleasant.”
“They were very helpful,” she said. “They did not have any audit findings. They did an analysis, and there is a lot of cleanup that we have to do in the Shelby County Clerk’s Office with regard to the way we provide our services and especially the way we report our finances.”
But Halbert insisted her office has not had a financial audit that she requested, a claim she has repeated several times.
She says the audit process was started, but was halted by the county.
Commissioner Mick Wright pointed out that Halbert had told county commissioners two years ago that an audit was being done on her office. He asked what the status of that audit was.
Halbert responded that the audit had been stopped, but not by her office.
“Shelby County intervened, and they interrupted the audit,” she said.
“I’m so speechless,” Wright said.
“I am too, sir,” Halbert said.
