Panel slowing pace on probe of Workman

The investigation into Salt Lake County Nancy Workman's hiring practices, which to date has been on a relatively fast track, has slowed down.

A panel of county attorneys from Utah, Summit, Davis and Weber counties — assigned the task of deciding whether to charge Workman and, if charges are brought, what they will be — met last week to consider the matter but is not scheduled to meet again for two weeks.

"There's just some more information they need to know," said Weber County Attorney Mark DeCaria. "They're not ready to sit down and review the materials yet."

DeCaria has assigned his chief deputy, Bill Daines, to represent him on the panel.

Last week the panel made a cursory examination of the evidence Salt Lake County District Attorney David Yocom has accumulated and asked for more information in certain areas, which will take some time to gather. Further delaying things is the fact that Utah County Attorney Kay Bryson is out of town this week.

The key question the panel is likely to focus on is why Workman had two employees doing one thing when they were ostensibly doing another.

Alina Iorga and Jennifer Schroder (hired after Iorga left) were hired within and paid from the county health department because their job description was to be a community liaison for health services. In fact, they were assisting Workman's daughter, Aisza, the fiscal manager of the Boys & Girls Clubs of South Valley, doing accounting.

The mayor and her staff have declined comment on why and how the discrepancy occurred, citing the investigation.

The county could easily have structured things to give the clubs accounting help paid for by the county, chief administrative officer David Marshall said, but for unknown reasons the required steps were not taken.

The panel's decision is likely to hinge on those reasons. If it finds Workman was trying to hide the fact that the employees were working for her daughter, the panel is much more likely to file charges than if it finds Workman had, as she puts it, simply failed to procedurally "dot some i's and cross some t's."

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