The county administrator and county attorney jobs are subject to annual review and extension.  And it looks like El Paso County commissioners will approve County Administrator Jeff Greene’s contract and extension for another year at Thursday’s meeting.  County spokesman Dave Rose said commissioners spent 2.5 hours in an executive session discussing it earlier this week.

County Attorney Bill Louis’ contract also was supposed to have been renegotiated by Dec. 1. But that hasn’t happened yet. Rose said he doesn’t know why, and Louis declined to comment. Instead, commissioners will consider extending his contract negotiations for three more weeks, until Dec. 22. They’ll vote on the extension Thursday.

Greene is paid $137,000, and if commissioners approve his new contract, he’ll be eligible for up to a 3 percent pay-for-performance raise —  if commissioners approve salary increases for county employees at their final budget hearing on Dec. 15.

Louis’ salary is $132,100. The request for an extension to negotiate his contract says it’s a mutual agreement between Louis and the commissioners to do so.

There has been some tension in recent weeks. In early November, Louis questioned Greene’s decision to move forward with a lease/purchase agreement on an office condo building and called for him to be placed on administrative leave, pending an investigation of alleged campaign kickback promises involving the building’s owner. The District Attorney’s Office looked into Louis’ concerns and determined there had been no wrongdoing and no need to open a formal investigation. Greene was never put on administrative leave. And commissioners agreed to proceed with negotiations on leasing and possibly buying the building, which is on Arrowswest Drive, next to the county’s new Citizens Service Center on Garden of the Gods Road.

The El Paso County Attorney’s Office has turned up the heat on a mother-daughter pair who have been living rent-free in a home by filing an amended complaint against them in district court.

But Jeanette Dobbs and her daughter, Jessie, who seem well versed in the law and their legal rights, still aren’t budging from the house, which is located at 2924 Drakestone Drive in north-central Colorado Springs.

In a hand-written response filed March 9, the duo said they did not “set out to defraud ” the El Paso County Public Trustee when they wrote  a $164,000 check on Nov. 20, 2007, to redeem their property.

Instead, Jeanette and Jessie Dobbs blamed the bank — E-Trade — for closing their account without authorization and they asked to be given an opportunity to pay what is owed on their property.

On Nov. 20, 2007, Jessie Dobbs wrote a $164,000 check to the public trustee’s office to redeem the house they had lost through foreclosure. 

Even though the check was written on a personal account and the 75-day period for redemption had elapsed, then-public trustee Patricia Thompson accepted the check. The receipt was backdated by one day, as well as the certificate of redemption.

The daughter, Jessie, was subsequently charged by the District Attorney’s Office with fraud by check and attempting to influence a public servant, as well as fraud in an unrelated cause. As part of a plea bargain, she agreed to pay about $192,000 in restitution.

Any restitution paid in connection with the house would go back into the county general fund. But the county — and its taxpayers — have yet to see a dime.

We’ve already told you about $81,000 in bonuses to El Paso County employees who haven’t had raises in a long long time. But that’s not the whole story. Turns out the $81,000 was only a partial list of assessor, treasurer and county attorney employees. We’ve recently learned that transportation, human services and other departments also gave roughly $40,000 more in “monetary achievement awards.” In addition, various county departments bestowed recruitment bonuses of $15,000 to attract uniquely qualified job candidates, and $38,250 in retention bonuses to keep good people around. So that brings the grand total to $174,110 for 2008. County Attorney Bill Louis said he gave retention bonuses last September before it was apparent the economy was crumbling. He said he won’t give those bonuses this year, given the job market.