Within a larger political battle, a resolution to the Jefferson County payroll controversy was reached

Little Rock, Arkansas – Judge Gerald Robinson’s approval of the payroll claims today brought an end to the protracted argument surrounding the payroll dilemma in Jefferson County.

Gerald Robinson, the Jefferson County Judge, was not willing to approve checks for county workers, so we had a conversation with him. He feels that two employees shouldn’t be compensated. In one, he said there had been a sick leave infraction; in the other, he labeled it a nepotistic case.

The judge claimed that he had requested that the county clerk take those two people off the payroll so that the rest of the county could get paid, but the clerk had refused.

The County clerk refused because she said she can’t tell another elected official what to do, but this is the key to the county clerk’s office in many parts of the state. The county clerk’s office is the human resource department so she has a dual role. Number one, she’s in charge of payroll, she’s in charge of voting, and she is a human resource manager for the county. She has the authority that if something is not right, if something is not done according to policy, she can withhold those checks.

Lafayette Woods, the Jefferson County Sheriff, also spoke with us and informed us that the community and county personnel have been experiencing anxiety as a result of the delay.

“It violates all types of labor laws obviously the us department of labor is involved as they should have been in communication with the State Department of labor, and those officials, who I believe, are properly situated to place some attention where much needed.” said Woods.

The payroll dispute is just one facet of a larger, existential conflict between Robinson and other county leaders in the Jefferson County government. The sheriff claimed that they had already fought the judge before. “A lawsuit has been filed, and my office has served the judge with the lawsuit, so there are multiple things that happened at once to make sure that this doesn’t happen again,” he said.

County authorities have previously criticized Judge Robinson, accusing him of mismanaging the department’s budget.