Back in December, Williams had ruled that Niles was entitled to hire four additional employees for her departments. The judge even went so far as to set the salaries of the four new employees. The cost of the four new employees could have been as high as $168,560.00 annually.

Apparently Ms. Niles was not satisfied with the Chancellor's first decision, so her attorney filed a motion to alter or amend the Chancellor's decision to ask for an additional $57,000.00 to provide substantial raises for her current staff. Those raises ranged from $10,200.00 to $612.00.

After reading through the transcripts and hearing from both lawyers, the Chancellor stated something to the effect that there were mistakes made so he was dismissing the entire first trial. We'll go back to the start he said. "it'll be like the first trial never happened". The Chancellor's decision, to put it mildly, surprised everyone in the court room. He went on to tell Ms. Niles lawyer he could set about refilling the paperwork for a new trial. 

What does all this mean to we the tax payers? Well, all the lawyer fees, maybe $100,000.00 to $150,000.00 so far are just gone and now we start all over again?

Ms. Niles unbelievable greed and contempt for the voters and tax payers has wasted a lot of your money and now, I have no doubt she will start the whole process over again.

Besides wasting the tax payers money she has also put a lot of strain on her own employees. None of them have had a raise for two years because Ms. Niles refuses to sign her agreement with the county for her budget. Looks like they won't be getting their raises again this year either unless Niles gives up this foolish crusade against the tax payers.

Each year when a new budget is adopted, most elected officials, by law, have to sign what's called a salary agreement to accept the budget for their department. Because Ms. Niles didn't like the budget for her offices, she has refused to sign the agreements for the last two years.

I want to make it clear to all Ms. Niles employees, county officials want to give you the raises you deserve. We even offered to give you 2 more employees to help in your departments but Ms. Niles has refused every offer we've made to her. She alone, not us, is preventing you from the pay you are entitled to.

What happened at Friday's hearing could only be described as a huge loss not only for the tax payers but also for Ms. Niles. She walked into court with four new employees in her hand and walked out with nothing.

The cost to tax payers of a frivolous law suit by Ms. Niles, hundreds of thousands of dollars. The cost of four new employees, tens of thousands of dollars. The look on Ms. Niles face when she lost it all, priceless.

I think she swallowed the chewing gum she had been chomping on during the trial.