It’s been a rough year in Seaside City Hall, and the water is muddied as to where the blame lies.

Seaside City Hall has seen quite a bit of upheaval in the year 2024, with resignations and firings at top positions, including city manager. It also looks like it’s going to be an unusually expensive year for the city, as there have been times where it’s not clear who is minding the store.

On Sept. 5, City Council approved reimbursing the federal government for Medicare expenses of $493,159, plus unknown accrued interest, for medical expenses the feds believed to have been incurred by former city employees that may or may not have been related to a worker’s compensation-related ailment.

This comes after the city received notices from the federal Commercial Repayment Center, aka CRC, in October and December 2023 and January 2024 advising the city of worker’s compensation claims it was making on behalf of Medicare expenses of what CRC believed to be former city employees. Per protocol, Seaside Acting HR Director Samantha Alcaraz Sakhrani says those notices should have been forwarded to Seaside’s insurance claims adjuster to potentially appeal those claims and have them reduced or eliminated, but that never happened. She also says the most expensive claim ($468,758) was for hospice care for a former employee, and not worker’s compensation-related, and that the other four are for people she doesn’t think ever worked for the city – perhaps Seaside, Oregon.

In a report to City Council on the matter, current city officials blame the mistake squarely on former HR director Sandra Floyd and former city manager Jaime Fontes, who were both terminated by the city earlier this year. “Neither the former [HR Director] nor their supervisor took discernible action to file challenges to the amounts due within the challenge period and as a result, the city is obligated to pay the full amount.”

Alcaraz Sakhrani says CRC’s notices were found in boxes left in Floyd’s office, and not discovered until this summer. But Floyd disputes that – she says the boxes weren’t hers, and that they were left in the office by former HR director Roberta Greathouse, who preceded Floyd. Moreover, she says she never saw the claims, which weren’t addressed to her, but to the city, and she believes they would have gone to the finance department.

Floyd filed a claim with the city Aug. 29 for an unspecified amount greater than $10,000, claiming retaliation and harassment, specifically against City Attorney Sheri Damon, who she accused of starting “a sham investigation against me as a ruse to bully and harass me along with those employees who complained against her.”

Her claim came after a similar claim from Fontes earlier this year, which broadly outlined the same plot points – essentially, that there were personnel investigations happening that were not duly authorized by the city manager, pursuant to the city’s code, but that instead were allegedly initiated by Damon for what they claim was retaliation. (Citing pending litigation, Damon declined to comment.) Fontes filed a lawsuit against the city Sept. 19.