Clements maintains she did nothing wrong
By KEN de la BASTIDE
Tribune staff writer
May 05, 2009 11:18 pm
— State Rep. Jacque Clements denied any wrongdoing as either auditor or deputy auditor for Clinton County.
Clements, R-38th District, was fired by the Clinton County commissioners last week for unauthorized use of e-mails, a violation of county policy. She also denied any wrongdoing in connection with a New York-based software company hired by the county in 2007.
Clements worked part time as a deputy auditor. She is prohibited from the auditor’s and treasurer’s offices except to pay property taxes.
In addition to the unauthorized use of county e-mail, county officials are investigating to determine if she leaked information to Nikish Software. The county terminated the contract with Nikish last year and has been trying to transfer data to a new software system.
“They terminated me for personal e-mails that everyone has,” Clements said Tuesday. ”I worked very hard as county auditor. I’m not an employee of Nikish and have never been.”
Clements said she went to New York in April as a volunteer to help the company with a problem in mailing out tax statements in Owen County. Nikish paid her expenses.
“They felt they needed some help,” she said of Nikish.
Clements said Clinton County agreed to be a development site for Nikish software in Indiana.
Nikish software is only used in Clinton, Owen and Delaware counties.
“We knew in advance there would be problems,” she said. “They were not totally in compliance with state law.”
Clements said she has not been pressured to resign from the Legislature, where she represents western portions of Howard County. She was first elected in 2008.
Nikish Software did not respond to a request for comment by the Kokomo Tribune.
Clinton County attorney Ted Johnson said the investigation is ongoing as the county processes 10,000 e-mails between the county and Nikish.
Clinton County officials have released approximately 100 of the e-mails between county employees and Nikish.
While county officials were negotiating with Nikish to find a way to transfer data to a Manatron system, Johnson said there were communications taking place.
The Clinton County spring property tax collection is delayed because of the inability to transfer the data between the two software systems, he said.
That led to an internal investigation of all e-mails exchanged with Nikish or their representatives, and the communications with Clements were discovered.
“The county’s position was compromised by person or persons unknown,” Johnson said.
Johnson said Clements recommended the hiring of Nikish, and members of the county council in 2006 and 2007 were polled to determine why Nikish was hired. He said Clements persuaded county officials to sign the contract.
He said Clements told county officials at the time that Manatron wanted to charge $231,000 for the new state-required software.
“That turned out not to be true,” Johnson said. “The cost was $43,000. We believe we have that documentation.”
Clinton County signed a $99,000 contract with Nikish.
“[Clements] was marketing the product before it was delivered,” Johnson said. “She recommended it at a state auditor’s conference as indicated in e-mails. She lobbied the council members to hire Nikish.”
Johnson said there is also an e-mail that shows Low Associates Inc. contacted Clements about making a proposal to provide the software.
He said that offer was never shown to the commissioners or council and only discovered during the investigation.
Several e-mails released by Clinton County officials show Clements had a personal, intimate relationship with the Indiana marketing director for Nikish at the time the contract was awarded.
Johnson said it’s too early to determine what the end result of the investigation will be.
• Ken de la Bastide is enterprise editor for the Kokomo Tribune. Contact him at (765) 454-8580 or ken.delabastide@kokomotribune.com
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