A former DeKalb County procurement officer has filed a whistleblower lawsuit that says she was demoted and ultimately fired after complaining to county officials about bid rigging, collusion, and other illegal activity tied to the Department of Watershed Management.
Teresa Slayton's lawsuit, filed in Superior Court on Thursday, creates more trouble for the county's water and sewer operations. On March 7, a massive water main break crippled the water supply for hundreds of thousands of people on the same day that a scathing resignation letter from the Watershed Management director came to light.
The county said it could not comment on pending litigation and did not respond to questions about the allegations in the lawsuit. Slayton’s attorney, Cheryl Legare, also declined an interview request.
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Slayton started working as a senior procurement agent in August 2016, where she was team lead for purchases under the $1.35 billion Capital Improvement Program. This overhaul of the water and sewer system was created in part to meet requirements under the consent decree with state and federal environmental regulations.
The suit says that in November of that year Slayton told her supervisor, Warrick Sams, that a contractor was overbilling the county through change orders and that another had a conflict of interest with the Watershed Management Department. In January 2017 Slayton reported to Sams and Talisa Clark, the chief procurement officer, that watershed employees were sharing insider information to a third company bidding on a CIP contract worth $7.7 million.
Slayton says that Clark later encouraged her to act unethically and then demoted her of her supervisory responsibilities in March 2017. By that time, Sams had been terminated and Slayton asked to be promoted into her former supervisor’s post. Her request was denied and she now reports in the lawsuit that she was encouraged to lie about Sams’ character and conduct.
The lawsuit says that Slayton met with an FBI agent in March 2017 and several times between April and August of that year, reporting what she believed was illegal activity in the Watershed Management and Procurement and Contracting departments. It does not say whether the FBI followed up on her complaints and a spokesman could not be reached on Friday.
She also says she complained to DeKalb’s Human Resources department, the county attorney and in May 2017 to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
She was fired in August.
Slayton was targeted “because she uncovered and disclosed wrongdoing involving contracts and her knowledge of this wrongdoing contributed to her demotion, the failure to promote her, and her termination,” the suit says.
It asks the court to deem the county in violation of the Georgia Whistleblower Act and award Slayton back pay in addition to other damages.
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