Emails reveal Burnet County judge’s hand in Sheriff’s Office audit

A June 2024 email exchange between Burnet County Judge James Oakley and international accounting firm Baker Tilly shows the judge’s heavy involvement in a forensic audit of the Sheriff’s Office. The audit was ordered following an allegation of payroll fraud. A selection of those emails, acquired through a public information request from a county resident, were read aloud during public comments at the Burnet County Commissioners Court meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 8.

Baker Tilly was contracted for $20,000 by a unanimous vote of the Commissioners Court in September 2023 to conduct an unbiased, third-party forensic audit of the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office’s payroll records. The audit results, which Oakley presented in August 2024, showed questionable labeling of overtime hours but no definitive proof of payroll fraud. 

The email correspondence between Oakley and Baker Tilly representatives reveals the judge had requested certain details be excluded from the final version of the audit report, such as background information and specific comments from Sheriff’s Office management. 

Oakley also seemingly directed Baker Tilly to limit its interviews to specific individuals and provided his own questions to be asked.

The judge asserts he did not attempt to influence the investigation but rather kept the accounting firm focused on the contracted scope of work.

The investigation into alleged payroll fraud by the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office has been hotly debated in the Commissioners Court for over a year.

The specific allegation is that certain BCSO employees were paid overtime hours that weren’t actually worked as an incentive to serve as training officers for new staff. Oakley has repeatedly stated in public meetings that the allegation came from an anonymous “whistleblower” who was a former employee of the Sheriff’s Office

The matter escalated on Sept. 24 when 33rd/424th Judicial District District Attorney Wiley “Sonny” McAfee gave a presentation on his office’s investigation into alleged payroll fraud that found no wrongdoing. 

The email exchanges between Judge Oakley and Baker Tilly shared during the Commissioner Court’s Tuesday meeting came from a public information request made by Burnet County resident Claire Nybro in July. The PIR’s fulfillment was delayed for months due to initial exemptions made by the county that were later overturned by the Texas Attorney General’s Office. Nybro and other residents read aloud from the 122-page email chain during the meeting’s public comment portion. 

DailyTrib.com has made the entire email exchange available online. The content of this article refers mostly to pages 87-122.

EXCERPTS FROM OAKLEY’S EMAILS TO BAKER TILLY

“The (Baker Tilly) team did not contact everyone they were instructed to contact,” reads a June 13, 2024, email from Oakley to Baker Tilly representative Paul Nash. “The report only documents rhetoric from the Sheriff and Chief Deputy. Please Remove. The Sheriff was not asked the questions (Baker Tilly) team was directed to ask.”

“The report should not include any perceptions of an investigation by the (district attorney),” Oakley continued.

“About the only good part of the draft report is it illustrates the number of instances of FTO & CTO was used in the time sheet edits. It does not show that the time added to the entry was added by a supervisor later and not part of the original entry,” the judge wrote.

Oakley was referring to field training officer (FTO) and communications training officer (CTO). The Baker Tilly report showed the FTO and CTO labels were used 957 times collectively, but nothing more. 

Nash responded to Oakley in an email on June 27, 2024, addressing some of the judge’s concerns:

“As a general observation, I have to reiterate the assumptions we set out in the original engagement letter … which states that delivery of our scope of work is reliant on: your internal investigation and data analysis being performed using a data set for which completeness, accuracy, and integrity have been validated,” Nash wrote. “Unfortunately, the internal investigations and data analysis did not meet the aforementioned threshold.”

OAKLEY’S RESPONSES TO DAILYTRIB.COM

When asked by DailyTrib.com to respond to the contents of the emails, Judge Oakley said his involvement was necessary to ensure the Sheriff’s Office audit focused on key issues and provided accurate findings to support any potential legal action.

In his correspondence with Baker Tilly, Oakley initially requested that several people be interviewed, then that only Sheriff Boyd be interviewed, and then that Sheriff Calvin Boyd’s and Chief Deputy Alan Trevino’s responses be omitted from the final report.

“The purpose of the report was to confirm or deny the allegations and then serve as a basis for the county attorney to take the next steps,” he said.

Regarding his request to remove the responses from Baker Tilly’s interviews with Sheriff Boyd and Chief Deputy Trevino, Oakley said he felt the report was unbalanced.

“There were a lot of people asked to be interviewed, so why only include that? I think it’s inappropriate because it’s not balanced. You need a quote from more than one person,” he told DailyTrib.com.

He also added that his reason for previously requesting the interviews be limited to the sheriff was due to budget constraints. The county approved a $20,000 budget for the audit, which was eaten up in Baker Tilly’s 11-month-long process.

“They were running into cost overruns interviewing multiple people. Just go ahead and interview the sheriff just for efficiency’s sake,” Oakley said.

The judge also told DailyTrib.com that he asked Baker Tilly to ignore the district attorney’s investigation because “any discussions with the DA is not within their scope or services, within the payroll records. We’re not paying (Baker Tilly) to be talking with the DA (about the office’s investigation) since they were doing something completely independent.”

When asked why he requested the removal of Baker Tilly’s recommendations, Oakley said they were not important to the audit.

“In the draft report, the recommendations were all for upsell—they wanted to engage further for more fees. I had no interest in that, and it wasn’t relevant to the scope of work they were hired to do,” he said.

The judge emphasized that his input on the report’s scope was not an attempt to interfere with the audit’s independence but rather to clarify what information was necessary for the investigation.

“The scope of their services included drafts and reviews. That’s well within our right to do that,” he said. “It wasn’t about steering or altering anything, but I felt like the quotes provided in the draft were not relevant to the questions agreed upon.”

COMMISSIONERS’ RESPONSES

Burnet County commissioners had mixed responses when asked by DailyTrib.com about the email exchanges. One said Baker Tilly should have been left to complete the audit without outside input, another supported Judge Oakley’s involvement, and a third expressed regret over voting in favor of the audit.

Precinct 1 Commissioner Jim Luther, who was included in some of the email correspondence, pointed out his lack of involvement in the exchange and expressed frustration over how long the audit took.

“Those emails were just to provide a status update. I was not the original recipient, nor did I respond to the emails,” he told DailyTrib.com. “My biggest question through the whole thing was why was it taking so long.”

Luther did say the auditors should have completed their work independently.

“Baker Tilly should have completed their investigation without outside input, other than where to find the information in records,” he said.

Precinct 2 Commissioner Damon Beierle voiced regret about supporting the audit in the first place.

“Voting for this audit was a huge mistake. I wish I could take it back. It was a huge waste of taxpayer money, and I owe everyone an apology,” he said.

Beierle added that the Commissioners Court should have listened to Sheriff Boyd’s plea at the Sept. 26 meeting.

“Sheriff Boyd told us in court that, if we went ahead with the audit, we would find out what we already knew, and that is the amount of overtime worked by training officers. He was right. Baker Tilly confirmed the amount of hours logged into our system.”

Due to the Texas Open Records Act, only two members of the Commissioners Court could be involved in the email correspondence. Aside from Luther, commissioners did not receive audit progress updates. 

Beierle criticized the lack of status reports.

“The best way to send updates would have been during a public meeting,” he said. “Status reports should have been given throughout the process.”

He was also critical of Oakley’s involvement in the auditing process.

“The attempts by the county judge to manipulate the report and its findings is an embarrassment to the Commissioners Court,” Beierle said. “The whole point of an outside audit is to get a third-party point of view without injecting your own narrative.”

The lack of updates was not an issue for Precinct 3 Commissioner Billy Wall.

“Everybody likes to know as much as they can, but it’s just like going into executive session—there’s a need-to-know basis. Only certain people can know until things get nailed down, and nobody else could truly know about it,” he said.

Wall said Oakley’s involvement in the forensic audit was necessary

“I was on the outside looking in just like all the constituents,” he told DailyTrib.com. “The judge did what he felt like he needed to do.”

Precinct 4 Commissioner Joe Don Dockery had no comment.

NEXT STEPS

With both the independent forensic audit and the District Attorney’s investigation now in the public eye, commissioners’ responses also vary on whether the matter is over.

“At this point in time, I feel like it still needs to be looked into. The taxpayers need to be taken care of no matter what,” Wall said.

Beierle had a different opinion.

“The DA indicated he had a few more interviews to conduct, once he wraps his final report, then we can go from there. But it seems this matter can be put behind us,” he said.

elizabeth@thepicayune.com