The Hamilton County Commission is considering a proposal to withhold funding from the district attorney's office due to ongoing and unaddressed concerns over potential nepotism.
Some members of the commission have been in a months-long standoff with District Attorney Neal Pinkston, who is funding his wife's salary and partially funding his brother-in-law's salary with county funds and has not made himself available to answer commission questions about the situation.
Commissioner Tim Boyd, R-Chattanooga, proposed during a commission meeting Wednesday that the panel suspend funding for Pinkston's office unless he removes his wife from the payroll or appears before the commission for questioning.
"Because we are the funding agency, I think it's a fiduciary responsibility of this commission to review what is going on with taxpayers' money," Boyd said. "We as a commission told our constituents in passing the budget that their funds would not be used to pay for his relatives' salaries."
During a routine budget hearing in May, Boyd asked Pinkston whether the county funded his relatives' salaries. Pinkston said no.
Later, the Times Free Press reported that Pinkston's brother-in-law Kerry Clewell - who was appointed as an investigator in 2020 by Pinkston - was receiving $14,000 in supplemental funds from the county at the time of the hearing to help pay his mostly state-funded salary. Pinkston's wife and chief of staff, Melydia Clewell, had received supplemental funds from the county in previous years.
Then, after inquiries by Boyd and state Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga, into the jointly funded office, Pinkston moved his wife entirely to the county payroll effective Aug. 1, to address state-level nepotism concerns from Gardenhire.
(READ MORE: Hamilton County DA accused of 'shell game' for relatives on payroll)
"So we passed a budget with the intention that no county funds would be used to pay for salaries of his [relatives] less than two months after the fiscal year. Budget went into effect, his office requested that his wife's salary be transferred to be paid by county funds," Boyd said Wednesday. "That's not what the intention of this commission was when we passed the budget. And we have asked him to come before us to explain why. And he has refused to do so."
Boyd and then-Chairman Chip Baker, R-Chattanooga, urged Pinkston to appear before the commission to answer questions about his relatives and payroll throughout the summer on at least three occasions.
Pinkston first said he was unavailable on certain dates and later declined to appear after being placed on the public agenda for the commission's Aug. 11 meeting.
In a document distributed to fellow commissioners and county staff on Wednesday, Boyd urged the body to suspend all funding of the DA's office if Pinkston did not either appear for questioning or remove his wife from the payroll by Oct. 1.
In the document, Boyd cites County Attorney Rheubin Taylor in saying that a 1953 private act passed by the state general assembly gave counties the ability to supplement their district attorney office budgets - but does not require any supplemental funding.
"I would venture to say that since this language is in a private act (designed specifically for Hamilton County), the intent was to give Hamilton County's former county council the latitude to make appropriations to the DA's office as the county may so choose, thus allowing appropriations not to be made," Taylor wrote in an Aug. 31 email to Boyd.
After Boyd proposed the revocation of funds, Chairwoman Sabrena Smedley, R-Ooltewah, asked Taylor to confirm that it would be legal.
"Yes, ma'am. I mean, you have authority to do it," Taylor said Wednesday. "As Commissioner Boyd mentioned, you don't have subpoena power, but you do have purse power."
Commissioner Katherlyn Geter, D-Chattanooga, said it would be a good time for the commission to consider looking for similar instances of employees paid by relatives in the county. Taylor said it was possible to do something similar in other constitutional offices, but would not be as easy in county general government.
Neither Pinkston nor Bruce Garner, a spokesperson for the DA's office, have responded to phone calls or emails asking for comment on this story or several other recent stories.
After the initial issue was raised in May, Pinkston released a single statement saying his hiring of both Melydia and Kerry Clewell was legal and ethical, and announcing his campaign for re-election in 2022.
"I will continue to serve the people of the 11th Judicial District with integrity and diligence," Pinkston said. "This will be the only statement I make on this matter."
Pinkston also suggested that Boyd was motivated to mention the staffing issue by a 2018 indictment in which Pinkston tried to prosecute Boyd for allegedly threatening a political opponent with damaging information if he didn't drop out of the race. The charges were later dismissed.
Contact Sarah Grace Taylor at staylor@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6416. Follow her on Twitter @_sarahgtaylor.