Collin County District Clerk Allegedly Disappears for 6 Months, Still Collects Taxpayer Funded Paycheck

Politics is a funny thing where you can get elected, do basically nothing, get paid, and then potentially still get re-elected because you’re a boss.

Potentially the case with Collin County District Clerk Lynne Finley, who allegedly disappeared for 6 months, collected pay, and returned to glorious applause when announcing her bid for re-election.

BOSSY

Let’s break down the timeline.

In 2020 everyone fell for this thing called the COVID scamdemic. We destroyed our society, but in the process some people took the opportunity to pick up new hobbies, read a few books, or in this case, allegedly go on a kick-ass vacation for 6 months.

Rumors began circulating at the Collin County District Clerk office that Finley had skipped town for the last 6 months. Staff claimed she was not showing up for public hearings, not showing up to lead her staff of 100 employees, and absolutely nowhere to be seen.

Employees substantiated this report, and county staff we spoke to claimed that she was completely MIA from the middle of March all the way until halfway into September of 2020.

A very nice 6 month summer vacation

Her lack of attendance was brought to the attention of Collin County Judge Chris Hill who then reviewed the key-card access report of all county facilities. Those results are in the chart above. Completely away from work for 6 months.

Initially, when approached about her alleged 6-month summer vacation, Finley denied being gone at all, stating that she had been coming in very early to work out of fear of the very un-deadly covid virus, and then leaving before the rest of the employees arrived.

We’ve heard, and given, better excuses when skipping classes in high school.

When Finley was shown the evidence of the key-card access report, she claimed she was still coming to work every day but she stopped using the employee key-card-required parking lot and would ask one of her staff to let her into the courthouse every morning for the last 6 months.

Judge Chris Hill followed up with a key-card access report for all employees in the early mornings of those 6 months and found no key card usage by any employee during the times that Finley claimed she was coming in early.

In July of 2021, Hill brought up the attendance issue at Collin County Commissioners Court. This lead to a new excuse from Finley stating that the reason for her absence was, of course, COVID.

“It was COVID, …There was a pandemic!” Finley stated in the July court hearing.

Finley claimed that her family was “high risk” and basically accused Hill of being a monster for asking that she come to court before a vaccine had been whipped together.

The irony here being that the Collin County District Clerk office now faces two EEOC discrimination claims due to Finley denying work-from-home accommodations for two employees during COVID. The HR department of the office placed both employees on temporary leave of absence. Quite different than Finley’s alleged 6-month work-from-vacation-home arrangement.

We find it easy imagine Finley demanding her employees show up for work while sipping on a nice cocktail at her beautiful vacation home in Washington state.

Yes, Finley has a very nice vacation home in Washington state.

cozy tho, right

We believe it’s possible that during her alleged 6 month summer vacation, Finley skipped town and headed to her vacation home in Washington state.

It does seem that her husband was in Washington state, sailing boats with buddies, during April of 2020, the beginning part of Finley’s absence. Odd considering she claimed her family was “high risk” from COVID.

uh, yes, we would also love to be cozy riding boats for 6 months ‘n getting a fat government paycheck plz

So what’s going on with Lynne Finley? Why all the fiddle-faddle and codswallop? Well, we were provided tax records that seem to show a $146,000 lien filed in Dallas County.

Drug addiction? Gambling? FMA? Nobody can be absolutely certain of the potential financial issues and the alleged 6 month vacation, followed by multiple excuses for her absence. Maybe she’ll publicly address this. We doubt it.

In the meantime, she was very excited to announce her bid for reelection.

At least she showed up in person to file

Collin County deserves better. We anticipate someone stepping up to primary the incumbent here.

This is an ongoing investigation. We’ll have more to report soon.