Top Henry County official faces ethics complaint over relatives’ employment

In the complaint, Smith cites state law that prohibits public officers from “advocating for or causing the advancement, appointment, employment, promotion or transfer” of a family member to a position that pays a salary of $10,000 or more. It is unclear if the law applies to county managers or just elected and state officials.

Anyone appointed or promoted in violation of the law “shall not be entitled to any payment, salary or benefits received for any position so illegally obtained,” the law says.

Deputy County Manager Kevin Johnson confirmed Wednesday that Hobson-Matthews’ sister, Chetara McKinney, was promoted in 2023 from a manager in the Transit Department to assistant director in the same department, receiving an annual salary increase from $61,961 to $82,731. McKinney, who started working for the county in 2014, now makes $93,094.

Johnson emphasized that, although all county employees ultimately report to the county manager, Hobson-Matthews had no direct involvement in her sister’s promotion.

Hobson-Matthews’ husband, Willie Matthews, works as a superintendent of environmental compliance in the county’s Building & Plan Review Department and received his last promotion in 2008, well before his wife became county manager, Johnson said.

Matthews, who started working for the county as a laborer in 2004, currently makes a salary of $96,677.

Hobson-Matthews, whose salary is $330,000, said she was shocked by the complaint and has done nothing wrong, adding there are multiple layers of management between her and each relative.

“I have been very, very intentional about any actions that occur within their respective departments — me not being a part of it, things as simple and travel and training requests,” Hobson-Matthews said Wednesday.

“If a travel request were to come in for anyone who’s in the building department or the transit department, I do not review it. I give it to my deputy county manager and/or the executive director for that department, so that there is not perception of favoritism.”

The county’s nepotism policy requires employees to “conduct themselves in a professional manner while on duty, without bias in regard to personal relationships.” It also says employees cannot directly supervise immediate family members and that only the county manager can make exceptions to the policy.

Johnson noted Hobson-Matthews does not directly supervise her husband or sister. He said the county is proud to employ people whose family members also work there.

“We have a lot of fathers and daughters that come here, and then their parents are still employed with Henry County,” Johnson said. “We take that as a point of pride, understanding that once you’re an employee of Henry County, you are family.”

The complaint comes a little over a month after Smith brought an ethics charge against Commission Chair Carlotta Harrell, alleging she directed the removal of county employees from an ethics hearing in which they had been subpoenaed to testify.

The county’s ethics board in December opted to launch an investigation into the complaint against Harrell, approving the ethics officer’s findings of probable cause for allegations of inappropriate conduct by a commissioner and engaging in activity prohibited by law.

The complaint against Hobson-Matthews is on the agenda for Tuesday’s ethics board meeting.