Freeborn County Sheriff Kurt Freitag said he is concerned some of the county board and administration’s recent decisions regarding the Sheriff’s Office are in retaliation to a judge’s ruling in his favor for a higher salary.

He pointed to the county board’s vote to table filling an open Sheriff’s Office patrol sergeant position, stating it is having negative effects not only on the department, but also on the community. He claimed there have also been changes to the Sheriff’s Office budget for 2020 without transparency or notification and overreach on training approval in his department.

“It’s not unhealthy to butt heads, but you can get to a point where you’re butting heads in an unhealthy manner,” Freitag said.

A judge ruled in Freitag’s favor at the beginning of August regarding an appeal for a higher 2019 salary, and the county has since appealed the ruling.

The sheriff said he tried talking to the commissioners individually to resolve some of his concerns but was asked to have the discussion at a public meeting. 

County Administrator Tom Jensen said there was a concern that the individual meetings the sheriff was having about the same topic could be identified as a serial meeting, which is against open meeting laws.

“One of the things I wanted to do was get things out and talk about it because right now we’re effectively reducing public safety for all the people of our county,” Freitag said. “Obviously, that’s not the right thing to do.”

Some of the issues were discussed at a county board workshop Oct. 22 and will continue to be discussed at a workshop on Tuesday.

Freitag said the relationship between himself and the county board and administration started to decline after he filed his salary appeal in December 2018. The subsequent May trial, he said, was indicative of the direction the future would take.

Now, it has been almost one year since the initial filing, and the case remains unresolved waiting on the outcome of the county’s appeal against the judge’s ruling.

Tensions worsened after the Aug. 20 board meeting, when the commissioners voted against paying interest on the increase in salary approved by the judge.

Freitag said he attended the board meeting because it dealt with his appeal, but he didn’t feel it was appropriate for him to have dialogue about it that day. The issue had been submitted through his attorney to the county’s attorney and then brought before the board.

At one point during the meeting, however, 2nd District Commissioner Dan Belshan tried to “entice me into an argument” and get him to come to the podium to answer questions, Freitag said.

Against his better judgment, Freitag said he went to the podium.

“I fell for it,” he said.

That board meeting created tension that was 100% avoidable, Freitag said, and he wished Belshan would have honored his wishes not to speak.

Jensen said Belshan’s dialogue was simply an invitation for Freitag to give his opinion, and Freitag could have denied that invitation.

Soon after, the county board filed its appeal with the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

“At this point I wonder what their motivation is?” the sheriff said. “They said it’s unfair the judge came to the decision she came to, but how is it unfair?”

He said as long as the case is unresolved, he continues to spend more of his money on legal fees and the county is paying more taxpayer dollars.

“I’m looking at this as a form of revenge,” the sheriff said. “Is this a good use of taxpayer dollars?”

 

‘This blindsided me’

After that came the Sept. 17 board meeting when Freitag said “from out of the blue” the board voted to table for 60 days filling a patrol sergeant position vacated when former Patrol Sgt. Mitch Hagen resigned for a new position.

The sheriff said he was given no information about why the decision was made.

“This blindsided me,” he said.

Jensen said there have been at least two positions that he could think of that have not been filled since he became administrator — an office support staff supervisor in Human Services and an office support staff in the assessor’s office. He referenced another situation where the county compared data for a ditch inspector position for 5 1/2 months before one was in place and said that was the case here, too.

Freitag said without the supervisor position, 25% of the patrol for the county is eliminated at the time that person would have worked, and supervision is reduced by 33%.

“I don’t like that there’s no transparency,” he said, noting that not filling the position has created overtime, inefficiencies and reductions.

Freitag said the county has been a part of four pursuits in the last two months, one of which ended with a shooting to stop a carjacking. On top of that, another bad winter is forecasted and the Sheriff’s Office responds to many crashes on interstates 35 and 90 and is often called to assist other agencies, including the Albert Lea Police Department.

He said the supervisory responsibilities the patrol sergeant provides are important, particularly in the more difficult situations.

Patrol sergeants also schedule and have trainings, go through reports of all the other deputies, audit the deputies’ body-worn camera footage, coordinate upgrades in equipment and manage special services the Sheriff’s Office provides, including the drone, use of force, firearms, K-9 unit and body-worn cameras, to name a few.

“Because they don’t understand the Sheriff’s Office, they don’t understand the ramifications of the Sheriff’s Office,” he said.

 

Other incidents

In addition to the board not filling the vacant position, the sheriff said he had another concern when a meal reimbursement for one of his deputies was denied when the deputy went to phlebotomy training sponsored by the Minnesota State Patrol.

Freitag said in instances of DWI arrests or arrests for criminal vehicular homicide, criminal vehicular injury or homicides, drawing blood is a critical piece of evidence in a case to determine whether someone had any substance in their system.

The sheriff said there was no communication about the request before Jensen denied it and Jensen reportedly said he was not aware there were any employees in his department that had to draw blood.

Jensen said he goes through bills regularly and signs off on them. Once more information was provided, the request was approved.

“I’m just making sure, and that’s my job,” the administrator said.

Freitag said he felt like this was going after one of his employees and in turn damaged trust of the employees in administration.

Frietag also pointed to changes to his upcoming budget that he felt were not made transparently.

He said he has met with Jensen and the county’s finance director about the budget and had gone through every line item in the Sheriff’s Office. They came to what he thought was an agreement on what the budget would be, pending approval by the board in December.

He later found out his budget had been changed, and some line items were reduced by half without any notification or communication.

“They have the right to do that — they control the purse strings,” he said. “I question why I wasn’t notified of any of it.”

Jensen said every department head met with him and the finance director about their budgets, and changes were made in other departments as well, not just in the Sheriff’s Office. He also differed with Freitag and said the sheriff was notified of the changes.

 

Moving forward

The discussion about the patrol sergeant position will continue Tuesday and is one of the items on the county board workshop agenda.

Also on the agenda are the presentations by elected officials for salary requests for 2020.

The sheriff said though his salary from 2019 remains unresolved, he plans to go into the discussion using the figure the judge approved in her ruling of almost $114,000 — not the $97,000 the county approved a year ago.

“All I asked for was average,” he said.

When asked what he thought could be done to mend the relationship between county leaders and the sheriff, Jensen said he was not sure.

“All I know is that my job is to follow the direction of the board in regards to budget, staffing and in regards to the future of the county, and I’m doing that to the best of my ability,” Jensen said. 

When contacted for comment, Belshan said, “I won’t comment until the appeal judge rules on the sheriff’s 22% pay raise lawsuit.”