The Merrillville Town Council deferring an ordinance separating the office of Clerk-Treasurer into two positions doesn’t mean it’s been pulled from consideration, according to the town manager.
The council plans to take the ordinance back to discuss it further, Town Manager Michael Griffin said after the Town Council meeting Tuesday night.
The ordinance, which was originally presented for first reading, says that the town under Clerk-Treasurer Eric January’s tenure thus far “has experienced undue challenges to the fiscal management and compliance with statutory prescriptions of Indiana law related to the generation of monthly reports, use of purchase orders, access to real time financial information in the several municipal departments, execution of certain employer contributions to (the Indiana Public Retirement System) and misunderstanding of duties devolving into refusals to perform; and that “repeated appeals for revised execution, performance and compliance are ignored, unwelcomed or met with (verbal abuse).”
The ordinance is allowed via a 2024 state law written with Merrillville and the town of Plainfield in mind. According to the law, if a town has a population of 34,000 or more, it may separate the Clerk-Treasurer’s office into a Clerk’s office and a Controller’s office, with the controller handling the money.
Merrillville’s population, as of the 2020 Census, is 36,444.
Conversation on the ordinance started during a Council Affairs meeting March 18, Griffin said, declining to elaborate on what January may or may not have done to warrant the measure. The presidents of Fraternal Order of Police 168 and Firefighters Local 5489, however, provided some context.
“These officers had money withdrawn from their pay, and then it wasn’t deposited into their (457 b) plan, and one officer specifically was out a few thousand dollars,” FOP President Ian Duggan said during public comment. “I’m not sure how to calculate the interest he might’ve lost with those things not being deposited, but that’s an issue.”
A few officers have also had “mysterious withdrawals” taken from their direct deposit accounts without anyone telling them why they were taken, which is against Indiana Code, Duggan said. Additionally, four or five payments totaling $200,000 were not deposited into the officers’ Public Employees Retirement Fund, but he was told “that was corrected.”
“It’s presumed that this is coming from the Clerk-Treasurer’s office, but how are these things continuing to be missed?” Duggan said to the Post-Tribune. “Our guys are coming to me and asking, ‘Why does this keep happening?’ And what else is happening that we’re missing? I don’t think officers need the added stress of policing their own payroll.”
Firefighter Local 5489 President Scott Molchan said the same things are happening with Merrillville Firefighters. At one point, health insurance for all the town’s employees was paid out of firefighter funds, Molchan told the Post-Tribune; that, too, has since been corrected, but the department is still concerned.
“Like the P.D., we don’t need the stress; we want to know that when we retire, we’re going to have funds in the account,” Molchan said.
Joi Whiteside, office manager for the Clerk-Treasurer’s office, pointed out during public comment that the council decided last year that it would cover the 3% for the PERF instead of the employees covering it themselves. Because there were no conversations with PERF and the processing system the office uses, however, “it wasn’t an easy transition.”
“It took us time, and that is the reason as to why these payments were late. They were late,” Whiteside said. “They are paid to current, and they were paid to current prior to.”
Additionally, the new payroll administrator was promoted to her position Jan. 27, Whiteside said, but it took two weeks for the town’s Human Resources Department to add her to the program. After the previous payroll person left, another person stepped into the role but ended up leaving, so the department hired another person.
“So if we’re going to drop the ball, we’re all going to drop the ball,” Whiteside said. “Everybody dropped the ball – we dropped the ball, the council dropped the ball, H.R. dropped the ball – everybody dropped the ball. Had those conversations been had, those payments would’ve been made on time like they had been.
“It’s a transition period, and we cannot sit here and blame his office and blame him like he’s purposely not getting things done. That is not the case.”
January over the weekend said in a social media post that the ordinance was “an attempt to undo the 2023 election” and that Griffin has been “usurping the authority of the Clerk-Treasurer” by signing documents when he refuses to sign, even though the Clerk-Treasurer’s signature by law isn’t discretionary. Asking his supporters to repost it, he called the ordinance “a partial coverup” and the town administration “a cabal intent on removing anyone that will stand up for what is right.”
Tuesday night, he thanked Council President Rick Bella, D-5, for “pulling the ordinance off the agenda.”
“In terms of the payroll, the issues you all had with the Fire Department and Police Department PERF, all the other payments, if you look at it, are one time. It only happened at the beginning of the year when we were going through this transitionary period and couldn’t make the payments at all,” January said. “In terms of any other mistakes you have seen, please, I’ll give you my cell phone number. I don’t run behind anything and am not afraid to admit any mistakes, but that’s why I want to outsource payroll.”
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
