I-Team: Newton County fire chief taken off duty amid internal probe

By Johnny Edwards
Aired November 1, 2023
COVINGTON, Ga. - Newton County has placed its fire chief on administrative leave, following a FOX 5 I-Team investigation into an apparent conflict of interest involving his department’s rescue dive team.

Last month the I-Team revealed how a Newton County fire inspector made tens of thousands of dollars on the side selling equipment to the dive team, even though he’s one of the dive team members.

A week after the story first aired, the county put Fire Chief Mike Conner on leave. Conner, who has headed Fire Services since 2017, did not respond to requests for comment.

In early October, Newton County Commission Marcello Banes told FOX 5 the County would open an investigation into the fire department’s relationship with a Covington scuba shop owned by firefighter Glenn Mikos.

"We take these matters as serious, and we will find out exactly what’s going on," Banes said.

County Manager Harold Cooper told FOX 5 in a written statement that all purchases and payments to the scuba shop had been suspended. Sources later told the I-Team that the fire chief was taken off duty, but county officials wouldn’t talk. It took an open records request to confirm Conner is on administrative leave with pay during the internal investigation.

A notice given to Conner said the pay will last for 10 days, and the county will try to wrap up within that time. Ten days is up on Thursday.

County Commissioner Alana Sanders says the secrecy around the fire chief’s work status is unacceptable.

"We as the governing body of Newton County have no idea what’s going on, and we should be informed," Sanders said. "We should be the first ones to be informed about what’s going on."

For decades, Newton County and the City of Covington had a joint dive team. But about three years ago, Chief Conner decided his department would start its own team.

Scuba diving isn’t cheap, and what taxpayers likely didn’t know was who the county paid to provide equipment.

Records obtained by the FOX 5 I-Team show more than $140,000 spent on gear and training for fire department dive team members – all of it to Mikos’ store, Into the Blue Scuba, without any bidding process.

Newton County’s Code of Ethics says, "No official or employee shall acquire or maintain an interest in any business that is engaged in the sale of property, goods or services to the County," unless certain conditions have been met such as going through a competitive bid process.

At least one person within the county government appears to have recognized the glaring problem. Emails from a year ago show a finance department worker raised red flags after the fire department submitted an invoice totaling nearly $30,000 for six custom-fitted dry suits, 12 sets of undergarments, and 6 sets of diver boots.

Purchasing Coordinator Randi Fincher told a fire department staffer in an email: "You just really have to do your diligence since there is an obvious conflict of interest. If this is ever audited, we want all the backup documentation we can get to show everyone followed policy."

That diligence included getting other price quotes. But even the rare time the fire department took that step, it made no difference.

Records show Divers Supply, in Marietta, came in more than $9,000 less than Into the Blue Scuba. But fire department personnel urged the county to buy the suits from Into the Blue, saying the Marietta store would take too long to deliver them.

"The season is changing rapidly and the nights are getting too cold to dive without a dry suit," the fire department staffer wrote to Fincher. "The lowest temp this week is 43 and it's only going to keep getting lower which means the dive team may not be able to properly function if it is required of them before we receive these suits."

The fire department continued doing business with Mikos’ store up until September.

Sanders, the county commissioner, says the county needs a procurement department separate from the finance department to better scrutinize purchases.

"If you don’t have any checks and balances, something’s going to fall through the cracks," Sanders said. "That’s why we have to have somebody checking behind the checker."

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