Lane County has released a report on the investigation into fired County Administrator Liane Richardson.
The documents are heavily blacked out, the county says, to protect the confidentiality of employees interviewed for the investigation. The report was conducted by Greg Olson of USO Consulting and Investigations. Key findings include that Richardson sold amounts of her time management in excess of the policy for non-union employees and converted it to take home pay. She was dishonest in an email to County Commissioners about her knowledge that she had exceeded that limit. According to the register guard the budget adopted by the county for this fiscal year would have allowed Richardson to cash out 540 hours of unused vacation or sick leave -- almost 7 times what a county employee is allowed to cash out. This and another change would have allowed Richardson to boost her annual salary by more than 52 thousand dollars-- bringing it to 207 thousand. Richardson's contention is that at least one commissioner was aware of and agreeable to, her compensation practices.
