District Attorney Neal Pinkston at the podium
photo by Joseph Dycus
County Commissioner Tim Boyd pulled a resolution to suspend funds allotted to the district attorney’s office after DA Neal Pinkston answered questions about the budget during Wednesday’s meeting.
“It’s unbelievable precedence we’d set if we did this (cut funding) to a constitutional officer),” Commissioner Randy Fairbanks said. “He’s come and answered the questions like we asked. The voters are Mr. Pinkston’s boss. They’ll decide if he’s doing stuff they don’t like.”
DA Pinkston said that at the time of the original budget question, his relatives were still state employees, and at a later time he moved them to being county employees after concerns were raised at the DA’s conference.
He said he spoke to the county mayor’s office as well as the county attorney and county finance about this before doing it.
“I did not want them (at the DA's Conference) to continue to deal with those concerns, so I looked to transferring them to being county employees,” DA Pinkston said. “ No irregularities existed, so I made that transition.”
“Routinely, people do make changes after the budget is set,” County Mayor Jim Coppinger said. “The fact that people move around, in any of the constitutional offices, this is not unprecedented.”
Neal Pinkston said his relatives do not answer directly to him, but rather an administrator. After the Commissioners each asked their questions, the Commission voted to pull the resolution. Tim Boyd is the Commissioner who proposed pulling the resolution.
“This man hasn’t done anything wrong,” Commissioner Warren Mackey said. “The idea was that he lied, but that’s been cleared up. The idea was that there were people reporting to family members, and that’s been cleared up. I want to make sure General Pinkston’s reputation remains unstained.”
The Commission seemed split on whether to vote on the original resolution, or to vote to pull it. The commissioners opted to vote to pull it, and that passed 5-4. One of the dissenting Commissioners, Greg Martin, wanted to vote on the original resolution “to be done with it.”
During an exchange between Commissioner Boyd and DA Pinkston, the district attorney said the commissioner had an "agenda" against him and was not bringing up any other county nepotism issues. Commissioner Boyd was earlier indicted for attempted extortion. The charge was dismissed a long period after there was a jury mistrial.