HUNTINGTON – Five Cabell county officials filed suit over recent budget cuts, alleging that the cuts will prevent official from being able to fully perform their constitutionally and statutory required duties.
President/Commissioner Anne Yon; Commissioner Bob Bailey; Commissioner Nancy Cartmill; and the County Commission of Cabell County were all named as defendants in the suit.
Karen S. Cole, the Cabell County clerk; Sean “Corky” Hammers, the prosecuting attorney for Cabell County; Jeffrey E. Hood, the Cabell Circuit clerk; Irv Johnson, the Cabell County assessor; and T.W. McComas, the Cabell County sheriff filed the Petition for Writ of Prohibition and Application for Enforcement of Existing Permanent Injunction on June 1 in Cabell Circuit Court.
On March 22, 2005, the Cabell Circuit Court entered an order issuing a permanent injunction against the Commission prohibiting it from cutting the budgets of the constitutional officers when budget shortfalls fail to sufficiently fund all of the Commission’s constitutional, statutory and contractual obligations.
Cabell Circuit Court found and ordered that the Commission must fund all of its constitutional obligations first, which includes the budgets of the petitioners, and then, if additional funds remain, its statutory obligations and, thereafter, contractual obligations, according to the suit.
On March 24, the Commission submitted a budget to the West Virginia State Auditor for the fiscal year of 2016-2017 that reduced the budgets of the constitutional officers by 10 percent and the budget was approved on March 31.
The petitioners claim the budget reduction prevents the petitioners from fully performing their constitutionally and statutorily required duties and several of the petitioners will now be forced to lay off essential personnel, and, to the extent permissible by law, cut their respective offices’ hours of operation, reduce necessary expenditures and otherwise prevent their respective offices from fully carrying out their constitutional and statutory requirements.
As a result of the cuts, the clerk's office will lose three full-time and one part-time employee; the prosecuting attorney's office will lose two professional personnel, will not have adequate funds for training and supplies and will no longer be able to extradite defendants who have fled the jurisdiction; the circuit clerk's office will lose necessary personnel; and the assessor's office will be unable to timely and accurately complete required assessments and the county valuation and certification, according to the suit.
The petitioners are seeking for the 2005 permanent injunction to be enforced and a hearing to be set to present evidence as to the inadequate funding of their offices.
On June 27, the respondents filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that dismissal of the petition is justified because the petitioners have failed to name indispensible parties, including the jail authority, the park board and the library board, and that the individual commissioners are entitled to dismissal as only the County Commission, not the individual commissioners, has budgetary authority.
“Finally, the petition fails to state a cause of action upon which relief may be granted,” according to the memorandum of law in support of the respondents’ motion to dismiss.
The petitioners are being represented by John F. Cyrus and Michael C. Walker of Cyrus, Adkins & Walker.
The respondents are represented by Ancil G. Ramey of Steptoe & Johnson.
The case is assigned to Circuit Judge Paul T. Farrell.
Cabell Circuit Court case number: 16-C-374