Two Oakland County employees will lose their jobs and two others disciplined after a $450,000 staffing contract was investigated and canceled.

County officials announced the actions Friday afternoon with a list of the job titles with no names and the type of discipline:

• A CLEMIS manager, identified as E.J. Widun in public documents, was suspended without pay for four weeks and will be resigning from the county effective Friday, Nov. 7

• The founder of ZaydLogix, identified by The Oakland Press in public documents as Shukur Mohammad, was suspended without pay for four weeks and will resign from his county job, effective Nov. 14.

• The IT director, identified by The Oakland Press as Rob Davenport in public documents, was suspended for three days without pay.

• The contract evaluator who reviewed and approved the contract was suspended for two days without pay.

Fallout from the ZaydLogix staffing contract started when an anonymous tipster alerted county officials on July 3 that the company was created by a current county employee. It’s against county policy and state law for a government employee to have an outside contract with their government employer.

Within days, the contract had been canceled; county officials noted that ZaydLogix received no payments and the contractors hired through the company were transferred to other staffing agencies with county contracts. ZaydLogix provided five tech workers for the county’s Courts and Law Enforcement Management Information Systems (CLEMIS).

In July, county officials said disciplinary action would comply with the county’s merit rules and any collective bargaining agreements. The county’s four disciplinary options:

• a verbal or written reprimand

• withholding a pay increase

• suspending pay, and/or

• demotion or dismissal.

But the discipline was delayed, according to county spokesman Bill Mullan, after the administration decided to hire an outside law firm for an independent, in-depth investigation.

The county released a summary of Miller Canfield’s findings, which said county employees knew or should have known about the conflict of interest and that the ZaydLogix contract agreement violated state law.

The Oakland Press has requested the full Miller Canfield report, which hasn’t been released.

The county’s new preventative measures include:

•Shifting all evaluation of bids for county work from IT to the county’s purchasing division.

• Requiring all county employees to review and sign the county’s standards of conduct during the open season for health insurance choices.

• Mandating additional training on the county’s procurement policies and procedures for all IT Department employees, supervisors and managers.

County Executive Dave Coulter said the county “strives to serve the public with the utmost ethics and transparency.

“In the ZaydLogix matter, that didn’t happen,” he said. “The actions of some employees fell short of that standard, and they will now face the full consequences of their actions.”

Coulter said he was grateful that the Miller Canfield investigation found no evidence of intent to defraud the county or for improper financial gain.

Still, the failure to follow county policies and standards “is unacceptable and must be appropriately disciplined,” he said, adding that he supports the request for a police investigation.

County Commissioner Mike Spisz asked the sheriff’s office to investigate the contract on Wednesday.

“The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office took a report and we’re now determining our next investigative steps,” said sheriff’s spokesman Steve Huber, “We have nothing further to add at this time.”

On Wednesday, Spisz told The Oakland Press that no commissioner has seen the full Miller Canfield report as far as he knew.

“The state law was broken according to the executive summary put out by (county attorneys). What law or laws? We need to understand what really happened and the actual disciplinary actions planned along either any potential criminal actions,” he said.

“I remain committed to accountability in this and all matters where there has been a violation of public trust and the principles to which we hold ourselves,” Coulter said.

In July, the county told media that ZaydLogix subcontractors were transferred to other staffing agencies working on CLEMIS.

At least one, Charles Craft, said he declined the transfer offer while there were still questions about contracts. Craft, a former Troy police chief and former chair of the county’s CLEMIS board, had worked less than two weeks for ZaydLogix. He was never paid: his access to the county’s system had been canceled along with the ZaydLogix contract.

So Craft was upset when The Oakland Press reported his rate as $150, when he believed it was $125.

“There was nothing in writing, which was really my fault,” he said “I should have put something into writing.”

Mullan said Craft had not yet submitted an invoice to the county for his services.

“I’d decided not to pursue it because it was never about the money,” said Craft, a longtime CLEMIS advocate.

He’d been asked to join ZaydLogix because of his knowledge of CLEMIS and his connections to law enforcement agencies. His work would involve explaining how the system works to agencies considering joining the online platform. He said he had two conversations with Mohammad that involved how to submit invoices, but they never discussed pay rates.

The county has a two-step process for contractor invoices, he said. ZaydLogix would submit one invoice and Craft would submit directly to a county payment system. He said any discrepancies would have been corrected at that point.

One Friday, a county official called Craft and asked him to submit an invoice.

“When he does, we will begin our process to pay him,” Mullan said.