Norfolk revenue commissioner hired her daughters

NORFOLK

Commissioner of Revenue Sharon McDonald hired both of her daughters to work in her office as accounting technicians, paying them each about $12 per hour.

One daughter worked each of the last five summers, making nearly $5,000. The other daughter earned about $1,100 in the summer of 2008, according to records obtained by The Virginian-Pilot under the Freedom of Information Act.

McDonald is a constitutional officer who works for the state. She is not required to adhere to the city's nepotism policy. That policy prohibits employees from hiring or directly supervising relatives, City Manager Regina V.K. Williams said.

She also does not have to follow the state's nepotism policies because she is a constitutional officer, state officials said.

Still, several city and state leaders said McDonald never should have hired her daughters. The other four constitutional officers in Norfolk say they don't hire relatives.

"It looks bad," Councilman Paul R. Riddick said.

Hiring relatives hurts the public's trust, Circuit Court Clerk George Schaefer said.

"We don't want to take any chance of the public losing confidence in our office," said Schaefer, a constitutional officer. "I can't speak for Sharon's policies. But I would not hire a relative. It's all about appearances."

McDonald, who works in City Hall and receives city money to supplement her state budget, is paid $136,167 per year. Her office largely assesses taxes, while the treasurer's office collects them.

She insisted Thursday that she did nothing wrong. In decades past, treasurers and commissioners of revenue hired siblings or spouses, she said.

She also said the city and constitutional officers have hired the relatives of other city officials who occupy powerful positions.

She e-mailed a list of about two dozen who she said were hired by the city and related agencies. Many of the employees she identified work in different departments, did not work for the city or were married after meeting each other at City Hall, according to city officials.

She wrote that the city manager's son and daughter work for city-funded agencies.

Williams' son works in the law library at the city jail, which is funded largely by the state. One of Williams' daughters works for Second Chances, a private program that receives some city funding.

Williams said she did nothing to help her children obtain the jobs.

"I think it's very unfortunate," Williams said. McDonald "needs to act like a professional," she said. "I try very hard to work with everyone, including Sharon. Bringing other city employees into this I find very unprofessional and I'm disappointed.

"To cast aspersions is very unfair."

Sheriff Robert McCabe said even though he is not subject to the city's nepotism policy, he adheres to his own.

"I don't hire relatives," he said. Williams' son was hired for an advertised position and has received outstanding evaluations by superiors, he said.

"I hired him on his own merits, not on who his mother is," McCabe said. "Apparently, Ms. McDonald doesn't know the definition of nepotism."

McDonald also wrote that former Councilman W. Randy Wright's son works in City Treasurer Thomas W. Moss Jr.'s office. Moss said Wright's son applied for the advertised position.

Regardless, Moss said, it's one thing to hire your own children, and another to hire the son of a city councilman.

"I have not hired any relatives, and I wouldn't do so," Moss said. "It would not show good judgment to hire a relative."

A spokesman for Virginia Beach Commissioner of Revenue Phil Kellam said Kellam, also a constitutional officer, adheres to the Beach's policy on nepotism, which bans the hiring of relatives.

Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim said "the hiring of her daughters is not something I would condone.

"But it's not illegal and it happens everywhere," he said. "That's not to say it's right."

On Thursday, McDonald granted an interview with her oldest daughter, a junior at Boston University who was finishing her last day of summer work in the personal property tax division. Her daughter speaks fluent Spanish, which helped in dealing with Hispanic customers, McDonald said.

"She's done outstanding work," said her supervisor, Rick M. Wilkins, who produced a handful of testimonials from customers praising her work.

Riddick said that if McDonald's daughters needed work, they should have applied for the city's Earn and Learn program. It hires high school and college students to work in various city agencies. High school students in the program were paid $7.25 per hour and college students were paid $8.50 this summer.

"It would just look better if her daughters worked somewhere else," he said.

McDonald is the subject of an audit by the city for charging thousands of dollars on her city credit card to pay for hotels, meals and other expenses while lobbying the General Assembly in Richmond during 2008, 2009 and 2010. The auditor is expected to release his report to the council next week.

Last month she responded to a request from The Pilot to obtain travel expenses for an aide who went with her to Richmond only after an attorney for the newspaper threatened a lawsuit.

Most recently, in response to an Aug. 3 request from The Pilot to obtain her e-mail and correspondence during the last three months, she asked for $2,000 to provide the information. Generally, the city of Norfolk does not charge The Pilot for copies of correspondence, a fact that City Attorney Bernard A. Pishko reminded McDonald of recently in an e-mail.

However, McDonald said that she personally needed to oversee compiling the correspondence and would charge $65.36 per hour to do so.

When The Pilot amended the request to e-mail only, she wrote that she would still require more than $1,200 to get an information technology expert in her office to compile the documents electronically and to pay for five hours of her time to review the information before handing it over.

Harry Minium, (757) 446-2371, harry.minium@pilotonline.com