Recorder's purchase under fire

The Salt Lake County Auditor is investigating why the recorder side-stepped county contracting policies to fund a pet project.

Now Recorder Gary Ott insists the county must pay for a four-year contract the County Council believes it never initially approved.

The confusion began in December 2004 when council members approved $425,000 in budget requests for the recorder's office, monies the recorder saved in personnel costs. Council members believed the money was for bookbinding.

Roughly $100,000 of the amount, however, went toward an off-site data management service, a technology Ott has pushed since stepping into office in 2001. The information is recorded in financial documents obtained by the Deseret Morning News through a Government Records Access and Management Act request.

But county administration, including the mayor and County Council, isn't too keen on allowing individual county offices to build backup data servers when the county could ultimately save taxpayer money by running one central system. Councilman Joe Hatch believes the philosophical disagreement caused Ott to hide the fact that he planned on using the rest of the money for a project that the council doesn't support.

"A unified system is cheaper for the taxpayers and delivers a better product," Hatch said. "To avoid the argument with the County Council, did Gary inappropriately hide things from us? All that was reported to us was that the money was for bookbinding."

The council also wonders why Ott maintains the county made a long-term commitment to AlphaCorp for the off-site service when a contract was never signed.

The only documentation about the off-site Web server is a quote proposal with an unsigned letter attached, stating the county will end up paying an additional $230,000 over the course of four years for the data management project. That's not a contract, especially since the county attorney never signed off on it, Hatch said.

Despite the lack of a contract, on Dec. 7 , 2004, a representative for acting County Mayor Alan Dayton signed off on a $207,750 payment to AlphaCorp to pay for the server. Now Ott is asking the County Council to fork over $95,000 to pay for the second year of the contract. Ott did not respond to requests for comment.

The council is scheduled to debate the $95,000 payment Tuesday. Council Chairman Cort Ashton has repeatedly voted against these and other "11th-hour" budget requests. He said the budget should only be opened for emergencies, and all other requests must go through due process.