SLAYTON — Murray County commissioners took more steps Thursday to conduct an investigation of the Murray County administrator.

After holding a closed session with an attorney during a special meeting, commissioners voted to hire a legal firm to investigate issues involving the administrator.

Commissioners did not give details Thursday as to what those issues were.

Murray County Administrator Carolyn McDonald was placed on paid leave last week after a closed-session performance evaluation. McDonald has served as county administrator since 2022.

At Thursday’s special meeting of the Murray County Board, commissioners went into closed session for about an hour. When the meeting reopened to the public, Commissioner Dennis Welgraven said the board went into closed session to evaluate an employee.

“The board began a discussion about the county administrator’s performance on September 23, and elected to initiate an investigation to further review issues discussed in closed session,” Welgraven said in a summary of the closed session.

Commissioners then took a few different actions related to the pending investigation. Attorney John Edison, speaking via Zoom, presented a couple of different options for firms to conduct an outside investigation.

“I think that they’re both good options for you,” Edison said. The two law firms he presented were Wiley Reber Law, and Flaherty & Hood. Each of the two different proposals for hourly rates, and items like how they would bill for travel time.

The board voted to approve a motion by Commissioner Roger Zins to go with Flaherty & Hood for the investigative process. In Edison’s presentation, he said Flaherty & Hood had an attorney rate of $245 per hour. There were also rates for different support staff they might use, he said. The hourly rate for an analyst was $175, $130 for a legal administrative assistant, and $120 for a law clerk, he said. Edison said Flaherty & Hood would also bill their travel time at 50% of the IRS hourly rate.

After approving a firm to conduct an investigation, commissioners also voted to approve a request by Murray County Human Resources Director and Deputy Administrator Sharon Giese to return to work “effective immediately.” In a separate motion, commissioners voted to have Commissioners Welgraven and Mark Carlson to work with legal counsel on expectations for Giese moving forward.

Another item of business commissioners addressed involved how to handle a union grievance moving forward.

“There’s a pending grievance that was filed by the AFSCME bargaining unit, that relates to a policy change the board made with respect to holiday pay,” Edison said. “The grievance is at Step 3 currently, and so there hasn’t been a response to that yet.”

“With the county administrator position being on leave at this point, I think the board just needs to make a decision about who the Step 3 representative will be for purposes of responding to this grievance,” Edison said.

Commissioners voted to have Commissioners Welgraven and Zins be on a committee to meet with the union regarding the grievance.