FORT PIERCE \u2013 A dispute that allegedly began with a $14,000 unpaid credit card bill and a paid administrative leave for Fort Pierce Finance Director Johnna Morris has snowballed into a $200,000 claim for damages against the city and a call for City Attorney Sara Hedges\u2019 potential firing.<\/p>\n
Morris\u2019 attorney Denise Mutamba, of West Palm Beach, informed City Manager Richard Chess of Morris\u2019 settlement demands on April 28, giving the city until May 4 to respond before threatening legal action for expanded damages.<\/p>\n
Morris has alleged that Hedges violated due process, privacy rights and federal employment law when the city attorney launched an investigation after the city received a garnishment court order to withhold approximately $1,300 from each of Morris\u2019 bi-weekly paychecks until a personal $14,143.61 unpaid credit card debt was satisfied.<\/p>\n
Mutamba claims Hedges \u201claunched an invasive and unprecedented response\u201d to the garnishment order, disclosing Morris\u2019 personal financial information to each city commissioner and \u201crecommended Ms. Morris\u2019 immediate termination,\u201d plus a forensic audit of Morris.<\/p>\n
A check of St. Lucie County court records show Morris, whose annual city salary is about $180,000, has had several collection actions filed against her since the early 2000s, most recently three in 2025. Public records show she defaulted on a bank credit card in January 2025 and was ordered to pay about $7,600 in charges, late fees, interest and court costs. That settlement ordered her to pay 77 monthly payments of $100 through October 2031.<\/p>\n
Another default order was entered in April 2025, when Morris was ordered to pay $3,729.61, including $1,887 of credit card charges, $985 of interest and $481 in late fees.<\/p>\n
The garnishment case that set off the employment fracas resulted in a judgment in January for $14,343.61 to JPMorgan Chase. But when only $200 had been paid to settle the account by late February, another order was issued, this time to have the city remit $1,321 of Morris\u2019 bi-weekly $6,870.44 paycheck to the bank.<\/p>\n
Hedges handling of the disciplinary call had raised questions among city commissioners who became aware of a federal law that prohibits employers from taking disciplinary action against an employee after a single garnishment. If there were more circumstances behind her recommendation, the city has not aired them thus far, including to requests for comment today.<\/p>\n
The matter also created friction between Chess and Hedges, both of whom are charter employees who are hired by and report directly to the city commission.<\/p>\n
Chess claimed Hedges had thwarted him from seeking outside counsel to look at the issue when the matter of Morris\u2019 employment status first arose. City commissioners had sidestepped having a conversation about the charter job roles while the threat of litigation existed.<\/p>\n
In the demand for settlement letter, Morris\u2019 attorney also asks for:<\/p>\n
\u2022 A written, public apology from the city to be read at a commission meeting and published in a local media outlet, \u201cacknowledging the improper conduct and clearing Ms. Morris\u2019 name.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Removal of any record of Morris\u2019 April 13-16 leave from her personnel file.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Reimbursement of legal fees.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Hedges\u2019 recusal from the matter and hiring an outside employment attorney to negotiate for the city.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Restoring the role of payroll in handling garnishments confidentially.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause it is now a legal matter, I have no comment at this time,\u201d said Morris, an 18-year city employee, when contacted today by Hometown News. \u201cIt has been very stressful, and I am praying this will be over sooner rather than later.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chess, Hedges and Kaitlyn Ballard, city communications manager, did not respond to requests today for comment. Mutamba also did not reply by press time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT PIERCE \u2013 A dispute that allegedly began with a $14,000 unpaid credit card bill and a paid…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264289,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172,563],"class_list":["post-264288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news","tag-st_lucie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}