A former employee has sued the Cole County public administrator for wrongful termination from her job.
Rebekah Schollmeyer, who filed the suit Thursday against Joe Kuensting, claims she was dismissed from her job as an administrative assistant in Kuensting's office Nov. 13.
The public administrator is a publicly elected officer who is the guardian of last resort for those who cannot take care of themselves and have no one else to watch out for their needs and interests. Kuensting was elected Cole County public administrator in November 2016.
Schollmeyer, through attorney Rod Chapel, alleges in her suit Kuensting has been derelict in discharging his duties in a number of ways, including:
Failure to make the minimum one visit per year to at least 28 of his wards, placing them at risk for abuse or neglect.
Submitting false or incorrectly prepared statements to the probate section of the Cole County Circuit Court.
Allowing employees to claim unworked time as though they had worked.
Mismanaging an office "in chaos" where work piles up instead of getting done in a timely manner, resulting in waste of taxpayer money. Schollmeyer alleges she noticed discrepancies between the work Kuensting was required by law to do and the work he actually did. Among her claims are:
Kuensting is required to visit each ward in his charge at least once a year, but Schollmeyer alleges he failed to visit some people for more than a year and has failed to visit some of them at all.
Kuensting falsely told the Cole County Court he had made visits. She also claims at least three times Kuensting signed off, under oath, on incorrectly done settlements because he lacked knowledge and competence to understand they were incorrectly done.
In the lawsuit, attorney Chapel said Kuensting is required as public administrator to report annually on each ward to the probate division of the Cole County Circuit Court, which Presiding Judge Pat Joyce oversees.
Chapel alleges Joyce began returning Kuensting's status reports in August because Kuensting had failed to visit the reported wards within the previous year. The lawsuit states Joyce continued to return reports in September and October while Schollmeyer was still employed in Kuensting's office.
In the lawsuit, Schollmeyer alleges employees routinely took public pay for hours they did not work. She said employees came to work much later than the times they marked on their time sheets and that Kuensting condoned it.
By early November, Schollmeyer says in the suit, she had been told there was nothing anybody could do about what she was claiming because Kuensting was an elected official and could only be removed by being voted out or by an action filed through the Missouri attorney general's office.
Schollmeyer said she placed a letter of resignation on Kuensting's desk Nov. 9, with her resignation to be effective Nov. 23. She did not state the reason for her resignation.
On Nov. 13, the next scheduled work day, Schollmeyer claims, Kuensting did not speak to her and held closed-door meetings with other office workers. At one point, she said, she found she had no access to her email account. When she called an IT employee, she was told her email had been deactivated at Kuentsting's direction. Schollmeyer said a court marshal later came to the office and escorted her out of the courthouse.
Schollmeyer's suit states she was paid through Nov. 16 and was not permitted to work Nov. 14-23, her intended last day of work according to her resignation letter. She said it was unclear whether she was paid fully for the time she worked and leave time she had remaining.
Schollmeyer alleges she was forced to resign because her complaints were not addressed and, had she stayed, she would have had to comply with "ethical and legal violations."
Schollmeyer and Chapel are asking the Cole County Court for a jury trial and/or that the court find she should be awarded compensation for her losses as well as legal costs and attorney fees.
The case is currently assigned to Judge Joyce.
County Attorney Jill LaHue said the county is responsible for defense of county elected officials who are sued in their official capacity. She said the county had no comment due to the pending litigation.
Kuensting also declined to comment.