Grand Jury finds Auditor/Controller to be a bully and uncooperative

The Grand Jury investigated several allegations surrounding voter elected El Dorado County Auditor/Controller Joe Harn, including the fact that he lost the county more than $3.5 million due to incomplete paperwork submitted to the State of California.

The Grand Jury also found that Harn is guilty of disrespectful and harassing behavior toward others. One member of the Board of Supervisors told them, "Everybody knows Joe Harn is a bully. They have known it for twenty years.”

They are asking the District Attorney to investigate the allegations and findings in their report to determine whether Harn should be removed from office and should consider impaneling a criminal grand jury for that purpose.

Several different sources repeated the same three allegations about Horn to the Grand Jury:

1) The Auditor/Controller Joe Harn creates problems, blames others for those problems and then leaks information about the problem and a scapegoat to the press.
2) The Auditor/Controller Joe Harn refuses to cooperate with the Chief Administrative Officer or staff to fix problems.
3) The Auditor/Controller Joe Harn is a bully and targets individuals or departments for harassment.

The Grand Jury found all of these allegations to be substantiated. They said Harn outs political gain above what's right for the County.

Voters have re-elected Harn since he first took the position in 1994. In 2014 he faced his first opposition, winery owner Mike Owen who accused Harn of being a polarizing figure and bully who represents political and management dysfunction in El Dorado County. In that election, Harn won with 54.68% of the vote (20,681 votes) to Owens' 45.09%.

The County Auditor/Controller prepares an annual Cost Allocation Plan which determines the amount of money the County will receive from the State for administering federal programs. Harn's incomplete paperwork submitted cost the County $1.5 million in 2013-14 and $1 million each of the following fiscal years.

When the Grand Jury interviewed Harn about the error, Harn "blamed everyone else for the error and didn't take responsibility," according to their report.

"The Auditor/Controller’s willingness to allow the county to lose substantial revenue rather than work with county staff to submit a correct and complete Cost Allocation Plan is but one example of a pattern of behavior the Grand Jury repeatedly observed. The Auditor/Controller will not work with staff for whom he has little, or no, respect," the report said.

The Grand Jury said the observed situations "over and over again" in which they found fault with Harn:

- The Auditor/Controller identified problems, some major, some minor, and focused his energy on casting blame for those problems while refusing to work with others to find solutions to the problems he had identified.

- Credible witnesses said that the Auditor/Controller refuses, for political or personal reasons, to pay invoices submitted by specific vendors or for work done for specific departments. Some invoices sit on his desk for months.

- He engages in behavior inappropriate for a public employee supervisor. One of his staff wanted to file harassment charges against Harn but the Auditor/Controller himself insisted that the complaint not be filed until after the election. He is also accused of not addressing the behavior of one of his staff that may have presented a risk of workplace violence. The Jury said Harn physically interposed himself in an attempt to prevent them from interviewing one of his employees

Harn is also accused of failing to comply with his office's reporting requirements to the County Board of Supervisors and not ensuring the independence of a required outside audit of the County's financial statements.