Is new scandal brewing?

As if Salt Lake County didn't already have enough scandals, the county's auditor and council are investigating whether there has been some back-room greasing of the rails to help current political appointees survive into any new administration.

In addition, the term "ghost employee" is again raising its head, in the wake of Mayor Nancy Workman's Boys and Girls Club employee problems.

Three weeks ago, interim auditor Sean Thomas noticed a curious thing in a weekly report of open county positions: One of those positions was a grade-36 position — one of the most highly paid employee classifications in the county — in the treasurer's office, which didn't seem right.

"Larry (Richardson, the county treasurer) is pretty much his own 36," Thomas said. "What, is he going on vacation?"

Turns out that the position being advertised was actually a fiscal analyst in the mayor's office — county human resources told Thomas the treasurer's office classification had been a mistake.

"It's kind of a bad time to have a typo like that," Thomas noted wryly.

Thomas informed Acting Mayor Alan Dayton, who said he knew nothing about the matter — an unusual situation, since the position being advertised was in his own office.

Turns out that chief administrative officer David Marshall had created the position, and to fill it, he had in mind a mayor's office political appointee — fiscal analyst Marcus Anjewierden — essentially converting a politically appointed position into a merit position.

If the process had continued to its conclusion, Anjewierden would likely survive any change in county administration since, as a merit employee, he could not be fired without cause.

In every government, newly elected officials typically clean all the political appointees out and replace them with their own people. Merit employees stay on unless they're taking four-hour lunches or otherwise not performing.

Although it is not entirely clear, deputy district attorney Valerie Wilde said county ordinance and personnel policy likely require that any new positions first be approved by the County Council, which was not done in this case.

Some council members got wind of the situation and demanded to know what was going on, with the result that the council will discuss the situation with Thomas and Dayton in their Tuesday meeting.

"There is concern that new merit positions are being created for exempt employees to be slotted into before there is a change of government," Councilman Joe Hatch said. "We're going to make sure this doesn't happen."

Marshall staunchly defends the change, saying it has nothing to do with the upcoming election and that it has been in the works for more than a year.