County official fired, focus of probe

Monday, Feb. 24, 2003 | 10:46 a.m.

A Clark County assistant supervisor has been fired and is under criminal investigation on allegations of taking kickbacks for contracts under his supervision.

The county notified Armando Rodriguez-Dominguez, assistant custodial supervisor, on Feb. 12 that he was suspended "pending termination for violating county ethical standards in the performance (of his) duties." County sources said he was fired six days later.

Rodriguez-Dominguez had oversight of about 20 custodial contracts for service to the county's smaller outlying buildings. His annual salary was about $42,000.

The county, in its termination notice, cited numerous violations of ethical standards, including preferential treatment, conflicts of interest, compromising confidential information and accepting "additional compensation."

The notice also said Rodriguez-Dominguez violated state laws against taking "any gift, service, favor, employment, engagement, emolument or economic opportunity which would tend improperly to influence a reasonable person in his position to depart from the faithful and impartial discharge of his public duties."

The county, in its notice, said Rodriguez-Dominguez served as an accountant for two custodial companies with county contracts: Empire State Cleaning Services and Alpha Group. The county said he used a county computer to produce invoices for the work of the companies and tracked company earnings on that computer and otherwise helped both companies.

The two companies received cleaning contracts worth more than $161,000 over the last three years.

The county said a checkbook belonging to Alpha Group and canceled checks from Empire State Cleaning were found in Rodriguez-Dominguez's county office.

Finally, the county said Rodriguez-Dominguez told the government agency that he is engaged to and lives with Karla Gomez-Navarro, the owner of both Empire State Cleaning and Alpha Group.

"It is clear that you are in violation of many ethical and legal standards," Brian Rinehart, manager of the Clark County Housekeeping, Security and Parking Division, wrote in the notice. "Accordingly I am recommending your termination."

No phone listing is available for Rodriguez-Dominguez. Numerous efforts to reach him for comment were not successful.

Gomez-Navarro said Friday that she is not engaged to and does not live with Rodriguez-Dominguez and has never paid him to secure county contracts. She said she does not know why, as the county alleged, her companies' checks were found in his office.

She said other information would have to come from her lawyer, but she did not provide the name or number of the attorney.

District Attorney David Roger said his office is weighing criminal charges against Rodriguez-Dominguez.

"We participated in the execution of a search warrant at this individual's home," Roger said Friday. "Presently we are reviewing the information we obtained through the search warrant and other information obtained through the county to see if charges are warranted."

He declined to discuss further details of the case, which remains under investigation. Virginia Valentine, deputy county manager, and Raymond Visconti, deputy human resources director, declined comment on the matter, calling it a personnel issue.

The Service Employees International Union Local 1107 could have represented Rodriguez-Dominguez on the personnel issue with the termination, but was not asked to fight the action.

"I've heard about it, but he has not contacted the union," local President Vicky Hedderman said Friday.

Hedderman said her union has had concerns about the custodial services contracts for years.

"It's kind of like, 'I told you so,' " she said.

"This kind of incident highlights the problems of putting these kind of services out to bid. We believe and have documented that subcontracting doesn't save any money. We have been documenting this problem over the last two years and have made the Clark County administration aware of our findings."

Hedderman said the county has not responded to the union's concerns.

In a county report last year, County Manager Thom Reilly said the custodial contracts saved more than $650,000 a year. The county, which pays $1.70 a square foot for privatized custodial work versus $2.70 a square foot for work done by county staff, would have to fill 43 positions if it took over all of the contracted work, the report said.

Reilly said Friday that the cost to clean small buildings can be "astronomical."

"Just because of the alleged criminal behavior of an employee, I think we'd be pretty shortsighted to change our policy," he said.

But Reilly said the county will look at its oversight policies for such contracts.

"The larger question is, what kind of oversight was that employee receiving that allowed him to engage in improper behavior, if that indeed happened?" he asked.

County spokesman Eric Pappa echoed Reilly's comments.

"These actions obviously are not representative of the entire work force," he said. "There's no nexus whatsoever in this case to the issue of privatization. The work that was performed by these companies was excellent and we've saved the taxpayers thousands of dollars with these contracts.

"To turn it into something it is not is irresponsible."