Category: Money

Okay, in this post I’m going to disclose a mistake I made, the ramifications and most importantly the extreme annoyance that is the NCDMV and Wake County Courts.

In October I was pulled over for an expired vehicle registration. I didn’t realize it had expired. I got a ticket requiring me to appear in court on Nov. 17th. Within the week I had my valid registration via the Internet. I completely forgot about the court date and did not appear. Within two days I went to the Wake County court house and filled out a motion for continuance as instructed by the clerk of courts office. I was given a new court date of Dec. 20th.

On the morning of Dec. 20th I told Amy “I have to go to disposition court today” where the standard procedure is you show the District Attorney a copy of the valid registration and he in basically says “thanks, dismissed, go home”. Well the 20th was a busy day at work. As a result I completely forgot to go down to the court house again. So on January 2nd, when the courts opened back up after the holidays, I went down and filed another motion for another court date. Yes, it is my fault that I missed both dates and I was trying to make it right. So I filled out the paper work and handed it to the clerk.

This time instead of giving me a new court date the clerk said “You’ll be mailed a new court date within 2 weeks”. Okay, whatever. It will probably be moved out of disposition court to district where I’ll have to pay fines and all kinds of court costs. Not cool but that’s the price to pay for missing two set dates.

Tonight I got home and as usual I went to check the mail. I had a letter with a return address from the Wake County Clerk of Courts. I opened to find out my new court date. Instead what I got was a piece of paper that said only “Case Number 07CR### – Motion Denied. No new court date”. – That’s it. Absolutely nothing else.

So a little while ago I went to the Wake County Clerk of Courts website to see if I could tell what this means. The only information they have is this:

“If you have missed your court date by more than twenty (20) days, a late fee of $50.00 will be added to the fine and court costs. Additionally, the Division of Motor Vehicles will start the process to suspend your driver’s license.

If your personal court appearance was required and you failed to appear on your court date, the court will issue an Order for Arrest. You may also be required to post a bond to insure your appearance in court at a later date.

You may get more information regarding missed court dates by visiting the Clerk’s Office Criminal Division, located on the 1st floor of the Wake County Courthouse. Please see Directions for our location and directions.”

So let me see if I’ve got this right. Instead of assigning another court date they have decided that my license should be suspended, I should be arrested for a failure to appear (because the sheriff’s department has nothing better to do, like find criminals), post bond, appear at a later date in another court, pay fines and court costs and then fight with DMV to get my drivers license re-instated? All for a registration that was expired for 43 days total.

Tomorrow morning I’m going back to the Clerks office as early as possible to see what I have to do. Am I a wanted fugitive who needs to turn myself in before they arrest me at home or work? Why did they wait until exactly 20 days after the court date to “deny” my request for another court date? I’m not certain I’ll get any straight answers to these questions from the clerks office. They’re just low paid state employees who don’t care about anyone or their jobs. It’s all a system to them. My next post will be a follow up on what I learn tomorrow.

As far as I’m concerned this type of thing is nothing more than another revenue generator engineered by the County and State (DOT). This kind of annoyance, in combination with property tax re-evaluations right at a time when property values are decreasing, really bad schools and school boards are just some of the reasons why a move to Amherst county Virginia is looking more and more like a reality. I rarely, if ever, experienced or heard of this kind of garbage while living up there. It seems like in Wake County and NC the theme of each day is fines, fees and taxes in a cycle. Which wouldn’t sting quite as much if the municipal systems in the area didn’t suck beyond comprehension. For example, since Wendell now buys it’s water from Raleigh I pay about 20% more for water than anyone inside Raleigh and don’t get the garbage collection those in the city limits do.

In closing I would like to wish the Raleigh City Council good luck with their pretty new convention center, planned auditorium and one million dollar high class restaurant, suitably called “The Mint”, as we head straight into a recession. Pretty smart people you folks in Raleigh elected. They have very shiny silver spoons and real high opinions of themselves. I’m just glad I can’t vote in Raleigh city elections so I can’t be blamed for their self serving decisions. Anyone thinking of relocating to the Raleigh area, do yourself a big favor and don’t. Even the newly renovated, 8.9 million dollar, Fayetteville Street Mall is a huge flop just like your children’s educations will be. It’s hard to concentrate on academics in a trailer. Ya, no lie, a trailer. That’s what our new schools are and the Wake County school board is proud of this “innovative” solution to accommodate growth.

The more I learn about Suzanne Clifton the more irritated I am. Through research on her companies, The Excutive Staffing Group and The Castleton Group, I’ve discovered that she was also named one of Enterprising Women Magazine’s “2007 Enterprising Women of the Year”. Of course we can’t blame the magazine for such a mistake, but we can blame Clifton for feeding everyone many spoonful’s of BS by pretending everything was OK with her company while under investigation by the NC Insurance Commission.

Effectively, without notice, Clifton accepted this award while facing corporate insolvency and went on to insist to her clients everything was just fine right until the end. Have no doubt that her actions and inactions (in the form of disclosure) touched many who work in the Raleigh, NC area and I am beginning to hear from those affected personally. Suzanne skipped town out of embarrassment and may not come back (if we’re lucky).

Here’s the run down a local story that epitomizes the sheer greed only the worst of business leaders can possess regardless of age or gender. It’s also an argument against staffing agencies and outsourced HR/payroll firms and a testament to why any company considering itself worthy of being an employer of ten or more people should be able to process it’s own payroll and benefits internally.

Back to Suzanne Clifton. Here’s a woman who lives the high life, or so I hear. She’s the former President and sole share holder of The Castleton Group, a HR and payroll “partnering” firm that would handle these two critical pieces of business for smaller, local companies in Raleigh, Cincinnati and Asheville. It sure sounds to me as though Clifton was likely responsible for the most top decisions made for a company she went to great lengths to identify as hers exclusively. She even boasted about her business background and community service on the Castleton website.

In October of 2006 Clifton must have used her ego, reputation, and possibly money, to get named to the North Carolina Professional Employer Organization Advisory Council by the The North Carolina General Assembly. They appointed her to the council through 2009. She’s probably still a member of the council. Why is this important?

Let’s start at the beginning of Clifton’s and The Castleton Group’s bad decisions. Jay McLamb, Castleton’s former CFO, filed false federal payroll tax forms between 2005 and 2007. They didn’t pay almost $8 million in federal payroll taxes as a result. Let’s pretend for a minute that Suzanne Clifton knew nothing about Jay’s naughty behavior. Regardless, she hired Jay and didn’t have an internal audit trail to disclose fraudulent activity of this magnitude in her own company.

So the problems begin compounding. Because of this “clerical error”, which Castleton insists they reported when the problem was discovered, the NC Department of Insurance did not issue the necessary Professional Employer Organization license to Castleton twice between 2005 and 2007. Was this ever disclosed to ANY of the businesses Clifton, er, I mean Castleton handled benefits and payroll for? My guess is that a notice was not sent to their client base emphasizing they were operating illegally(?) at various intervals.

Edit: I am not certain that Castleton ever operated “illegally”.  They operated without the necessary state licenses from the NC Department of Insurance.  So they operated “unlicensed”.

It appears with $6 million currently due in back taxes from apparent fraud and no operating license, the NC board of Insurance deemed The Castleton Group insolvent on Dec. 4, 2007. Immediately Clifton found a PR firm (one that she could afford) and declared “We’re open for business under appeal”. Still no admission of a problem. By December 18th Clifton declared bankruptcy and listed 5000 debtors, most of which are employees of Castleton’s clients.

Many families had to go into Christmas wondering if they would have insurance coverage for which premiums had already been docked from their paychecks or if they would be receiving another paycheck at all while employers scrambled to internalize or change payroll providers. And who can these employers hold responsible? No one because the Castleton is insolvent and Clifton is probably privileged to numerous layers of incorporation protections for her personal assets. Assets which, according to Wake County property records, include a 2004 Mercedes valued over $42K and at least two houses worth just over one million combined. Smells like Clifton’s clients suffered the ramifications of an old woman’s greed, not just her bad business sense.

Two big questions remain in this story: Does Suzanne Clifton deserve to be on the North Carolina Professional Employer Organization Advisory Council based upon her stellar judgment we have seen displayed to date? Second, should there be further investigation to determine if she should face any criminal charges for negligence if nothing else? I’m forwarding these questions to WRAL reporter Cullen Browder to see if the media can do any damage to the matter.