County Fires Risk Manager Cox Commissioners ‘Had Enough’ Even Though State Probe Goes On

Claude Cox - the Spokane County risk manager under investigation for funneling car repairs to a single auto-body shop - cleaned out his office Saturday morning.

County Administrator Francine Boxer fired Cox over the telephone on Friday afternoon.

After a closed-door meeting with county commissioners, Boxer said she called Cox and asked him to come to the courthouse for a meeting. Cox refused, Boxer said, and asked if he was being fired.

When Boxer answered “Yes,” Cox told her to fax the letter of termination to his lawyer.

County Budget Director Marshall Farnell, who supervised Cox as he packed his personal belongings, hand-delivered the letter Saturday morning.

Cox has been on paid administrative leave since Sept. 29. Before deciding his fate, Boxer was waiting for reports from a state investigation into the way he handled claims from people whose cars were damaged during a July road project.

The investigation by the state auditor’s office still is not complete. But Boxer said she has seen enough to fire Cox.

“We’ve been in the review process for almost two months, trying to take it slow and methodically,” she said Saturday. “Yesterday, we felt we had enough facts.”

Preliminary findings by the auditors have led to a criminal investigation into Specialty Auto & Truck Painting Inc. The company repaired most of the cars damaged in the botched Bigelow Gulch Road resurfacing project, billing the county for about $500,000.

In that incident, more than 350 cars were damaged when a county road crew allowed traffic onto the road before the liquid asphalt had cooled.

Auditors contend the bills include work that wasn’t done. In many cases, the work was approved in spite of the fact that Specialty was the highest bidder.

In one instance, the county paid more than $2,000 to Specialty for a truck whose owner had not even made an appointment to have the work done, Boxer said.

Cox has acknowledged directing car owners to Specialty in the days after the road project. He said he did so because Specialty has done good work for the county in the past.

The Spokesman-Review reported Thursday that state auditors have secretly reviewed Cox’s personal bank records. They found “unusual substantial deposits,” according to a court affidavit filed by sheriff’s detectives. The detectives who wrote the affidavit made no attempt to link those deposits to Specialty, but listed them among the evidence used to justify seizing body-shop records.

The September suspension was Cox’s third.

In 1996, commissioners suspended him without pay for three days. He was accused of improperly hiring a friend and then lying during an investigation into the matter.

Five months later, he was suspended without pay for four weeks for using “earthy” sexual language during a conversation at the Spokane Interstate Fairgrounds. An employee reported him for sexual harassment.

Cox refused to comment Friday, referring questions to his attorney, who could not be reached. In past interviews, Cox has said he would sue the county if he lost his job.

Asked about the long delay between Cox’s last day at work and his termination, Boxer said it was frustrating, but necessary for a thorough investigation.

It was particularly difficult to fire Cox two weeks before Christmas, she said.

“He has a family, he has children. It bothered me a lot to do it this time of year,” she said. “I felt like if I didn’t do it, I wouldn’t be doing the kind of job the board has asked me to do. We are supposed to be guardians of the taxpayers’ money.”