County officials are clashing again with the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department, this time over the sheriff’s cell phone bills.

In a series of memos starting Jan. 23, county Finance Director Mark Pullium told sheriff’s commanders that the county expects to have the complete cell phone invoices submitted to the finance department. For at least a brief period of time, county officials refused to pay the bills before relenting to pay them “under protest,” according to one of the memos.

Sheriff’s officials contend they do not need to turn over the full bills because they contain phone numbers relating to criminal investigations, court matters and undercover agents, according to Attorney Rick Lindsey of Peachtree City, who is representing Sheriff Randall Johnson.

To settle the dispute, Johnson has offered to allow the records to be maintained at the sheriff’s office so they can be inspected by auditors on a yearly basis “to protect the confidentiality of the sensitive telephone numbers from public disclosure.”

County Attorney Dennis Davenport, however, said county officials still want to be provided the full cell phone records.

“The presence of confidential and sensitive information is not a justification to refrain from providing the invoices for payment,” Davenport wrote in a letter to Sheriff Johnson’s attorney, Rick Lindsey.

In a Feb. 9 memo to the four division commanders at the Sheriff’s Department, Pullium said the full invoices were necessary “to justify the expenditure of county funds.”

Johnson, who is discernibly disgusted with the matter, declined comment Tuesday morning.

But in a Jan. 27 letter, Johnson argued that he is entitled to spend funds appropriated to the sheriff’s department however he sees fit.

“This incessant harassment of my staff and me must stop,” Johnson wrote. “If I suspected for a moment that I were not operating within the law, I would stop what I was doing instantly. This is not the case and I will continue to operate my office consistent with the Constitution of the State of Georgia and Georgia law.”

Johnson further added that he was “disturbed” by the legal fees that have been racked up in similar issues.

“I am troubled a great deal that after more than 30 years I am left with no other option than litigation to pay a simple, lawfully incurred bill necessary for the exercise of my office.”

County officials and Johnson are no strangers to conflict. In the past two years, they have quarreled over the arrest powers of county marshals and the construction of a storage building/hangar on land adjacent to the Sheriff’s Department.

Both matters have been taken to the courts, and a senior superior court judge ruled in one case that the county marshals do have arrest powers and thus their prisoners should be accepted by Johnson’s jail. The sheriff is appealing that judgment.

The suit over the hangar and storage building is still pending.

Additionally, three county officials — including Pullium — were detained by deputies in early January after they reclaimed three undercover cars that the sheriff’s department had traded in to an area dealership. County officials contended that the cars were the property of the county government, not the sheriff’s department.

No arrests were made at the time, but deputies secured statements from two of the three employees about the matter. Pullium declined to make a statement, officials said.

Those three cars had a trade-in value of $21,000.

The usage of unmarked undercover cars by the sheriff’s department has been one of the disputes in a long-running disagreement between Dunn and sheriff’s officials, who have rebuffed Dunn’s request for a listing of all unmarked cars the department owns.

Dunn and sheriff’s officials have quarreled over the drug seizure money in particular, with the county moving to have all drug funds funneled to the county finance department. But the U.S. Department of Justice has determined the money must go directly to the Sheriff’s Department because regulations state it can only be used by a law enforcement agency for law enforcement purposes.

Dunn has also previously voiced his displeasure about the Sheriff’s Department purchasing a helicopter without notifying county officials beforehand. That purchase was also made with drug seizure funds, officials have said.

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