Jeffrey L. Hjelm Lincoln
Order and Judgment
The Maine Sheriffs' Association and Knox County Sheriff Donna Denison (collectively, Dennison) have brought this action against the Knox County Commissioners to seek a judicial declaration regarding the authority purportedly granted to the commissioners under the Knox County Charter to participate in certain matters internal to the operations of the Knox County Sheriff's Department. This action has followed a convoluted procedural route to its present posture, in which Dennison has filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings, and the commissioners have moved for summary judgment. For the reasons set out in this order, the court enters judgment for Dennison.
The factual predicate on which the court considers the parties' legal contentions is found in the amended complaint when viewed in light of the commissioners' answer to that pleading, and in the record on summary judgment. At oral argument held on the pending motions, the parties agreed that there are no material factual disputes and that the merits of Dennison's claims are in order for adjudication.
At oral argument, the Commissioners also agreed that there now is a sufficiently concrete factual context in which those legal claims may be assessed. Thus, they no longer seek dismissal or other relief based on lack of ripeness or any other impediment to the consideration of Dennison's claim for declaratory relief.
It also bears note that in a prior order, the court raised the question of the plaintiffs' standing. The defendant does not seek dismissal of the complaint for lack of standing. Although one may question whether plaintiff Maine Sheriffs' Association has standing to pursue the claim at bar, it seems clear that plaintiff Knox County Sheriff Donna Dennison does have standing, because the central question in this action is whether the Knox County Commissioners have the legal authority to intervene in certain matters involving the operation of the Knox County Sheriff's Department. As the Knox County Sheriff, Dennison is the proper party to pursue that issue. Thus, the court need not and does not reach the question of whether the Maine Sheriffs' Association is entitled to litigate the claim, because even if it does not, Dennison does, and so the court therefore may reach the merits of the claim set out in the complaint.
In November 2004, Knox County voters adopted a county charter, as authorized by 30-A M.R.S. § 1301 et seq., which is the enabling legislation that authorizes the establishment of county charters. The process used to enact Knox County's charter has not been placed in issue here. The central question raised in this action is whether certain aspects of the authority that the charter vests in the commissioners and the county administrator are within the parameters of the enabling legislation. Under section 1351(1),
The charter for any county may provide for:
. . .
C. The establishment of count departments, agencies, boards or commissions, and their descriptions, powers and duties; and the authority of county officers or officials to direct, regulate and control those agencies, departments, boards and commissions; [and]
D. The internal activities of county government; . . . .
Section 1351(2) then prescribes the limits of the powers that may be set out in a charter: ". . .[N]o county may, by adoption, amendment or revision of a charter, exercise any power or function which the Legislature has not conferred on that county either expressly or by clear implication by general or specific law."
The Knox County Charter vests the county's powers in its three elected commissioners. See Charter, art. Ill, § 1. Among other things, the commissioners are authorized to appoint a county administrator who is charged with exercising the commissioners' administrative responsibilities. See id., art. Ill, § 9. Under the charter, the county administrator is the County's "chief administrative official ... and is responsible for the administration of all departments and offices controlled by the Commissioner." See id., art. IV, § 1. The charter enumerates the county administrator's powers and responsibilities. See id. Among other responsibilities, the administrator is to "[d]irect and supervise the operation of all County departments and offices...." See id., art. IV, § 2(a)(5). Additionally, under the charter, "[p]ersonnel administration shall be under the direction of the County Administrator or his or her designee; provided, however, that appeals from personnel actions may be taken to the Commission by aggrieved employees for resolution." See id., art. IV, § 2(b).
In her amended complaint, Dennison alleges that Andrew Hart, the Knox County Administrator, intervened in an internal investigation of alleged misconduct by Sheriff's Department personnel and in the investigation of a citizen complaint about Sheriff's Department operations. Further, Dennison alleges that Hart created committees charged with hiring employees for certain divisions within the Sheriff's Department; he has established the hiring procedure; and he has assumed responsibility for making hiring decisions. Dennison did not consent to or approve of Hart's intervention into any of these matters. Hart based his authority on the provision of the charter that vests the county administrator with responsibility for personnel matters within county departments. In their answer to the amended complaint, the commissioners admit that Hart has been involved in the operations of the Sheriff's Department in these ways, but they also contend that the charter requires him to do so.
As is noted above, section 1351 is framed in both positive and in limiting terms: section 1351(1) identifies the areas of affirmative powers and authority that may be exercised by county officials (which, here, would be the county administrator acting as the commissioners' agent), and section 1351(2) then imposes limitations on such powers and authority. When Hart intervened in the Sheriff's Department's internal investigative matters, he acted within the powers and authority created by the charter. Further, the affirmative grant created in section 1351(1) encompasses those matters, because the investigations at issue were the Sheriff's Department's "internal activities," which is an area of control under section 1351(1)(D). Similarly, when Hart - again, as the authorized designee of the commissioners - became involved in the hiring process and the actual hiring decisions of Sheriff's Department employees, that involvement was countenanced by both the charter and the enabling legislations in section 1351. The charter specifically entitles the county administrator to direct "personnel administration" within the county's departments, and under section 1351(1)(C) and (D), a county charter may extend to these matters. Therefore, the commissioners' intervention in internal investigations and hiring practices and decisions within the Sheriff's Department falls within the basic grant of power associated with both the charter and the statutes governing county charter framework.
Dennison argues that the provisions of section 1352(2) limit the commissioners' reach into the operations of the Sheriff's. That statute, however, merely requires a county charter to identify those persons who would assume responsibility for the duties of the commissioners, county treasurers and registers of deeds, if the charter abolishes those offices or positions. By its own terms, this provision has nothing to do with the interrelationship between the powers of the county administrator and the operations of a sheriff's department.
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Title 30-A M.R.S. § 401 establishes the relevant limitation on the commissioners' power to intervene in the operations of the Sheriff's Department that are at issue here. Under section 401(1), "The sheriff shall act as the chief county law enforcement officer and is responsible for administering and directing the sheriff's department as authorized by the county budget." (Emphasis added.) Thus, within the parameters established the by the departmental budget, section 401 vests the sheriff with full responsibility and authority to manage and direct the operations of the sheriff's department. The statute does not carve out issues of internal investigations and personnel matters as areas of internal operations of the sheriff's department over which the sheriff does not have responsibility or over which she must share that responsibility with others. Rather, under section 401, those are operational areas over which the sheriff herself has responsibility, and section 401 does not provide expressly or impliedly that any other official is authorized to intervene in those aspects of the sheriff's department's operations.
Because section 401, either by its express terms or by clear implication, vests the sheriff with authority to administer and direct her department, a county charter may not lawfully purport to delegate or otherwise assign those powers and authority to others. See 30-A M.R.S, § 1351(2). Consequently, Hart was not entitled to intervene in investigations and hiring issues that were internal to the sheriff's department, because the terms of the Knox County Charter supporting that intervention exceeded the limitations prescribed in the enabling legislation.
The entry shall be:
For the foregoing reasons, the plaintiffs' motion for judgment on the pleadings is granted, and the defendant's motion for summary judgment is denied. Judgment on the complaint is entered for the plaintiffs. The court concludes and declares that the Knox County Sheriff retains responsibility for administering and directing investigations and personnel practices and decisions within the Knox County Sheriff's Department as authorized by the county budget, and that provisions of the Knox County Charter that purport to authorize the County Commissioners and the county administrator to intervene in such administration and direction are void and unenforceable.
The plaintiffs' motion to supplement the pleadings is dismissed as moot.
The plaintiffs are awarded their costs of court.
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Justice, Maine Superior Court