Only a few weeks after being named to the position, Cass County’s newly appointed finance director was fighting for her job.

The Cass County Board of Commissioners held a special meeting Friday to reconfirm its recent approval of Angie Steinman as the county’s financial director and deputy administrator after the board discovered she had a misdemeanor conviction on her record. The board narrowly upheld Steinman’s hire, by a vote of 4 to 3.

According to the board, the meeting was called to session to discuss the issue after receiving an anonymous letter that claimed  Steinman had a prior conviction on her record. Subsequent investigation showed that she had pled guilty to charges of larceny less than $100 when she was 18 years old, a fact which she did not disclose on her application.

“She was quite surprised that record still existed, because she was quite youthful at the time,” said County Administrator Roger Fraser. “She chose, consciously or unconsciously, to put that behind her, and she hadn’t made the motions necessary to expunge that from her record.”

Fraser was present at the meeting Friday, and recalled that then-Chairman Skip Dyes discussed the possibility of rescinding Steinman’s hire during his remarks to the board.

Despite the omission on her record, Fraser recommended that the commissioners uphold their prior decision to allow Steinman’s hire to go through.

“I wasn’t happy about the fact that this occurred the way it did, but on the other hand, I am recommending that you have Steinman as our finance director,” Fraser said.

Dyes was the most outspoken commissioner against Steinman’s appointment, as he felt the omission of the conviction should bar her from employment.

“We will be defending this for a long time if we hire her,” Dyes said. “I have nothing against her personally, but we have rules and policies we must follow.”

One of the points of contention amongst the commissioners was whether or not the language of the contract regarding prior convictions would automatically rule out Steinman’s hire.

“On our application, it indicated that if you did have a conviction, there is latitude,” said Commissioner Bernie Williamson. “We can take into account the age at which the conviction occurred, the time that had passed and most importantly, if there were additional incidents.”

According to Fraser, no other convictions had been discovered in Steinman’s background.

“I think it’s pretty clear that this was bad judgment and not a pattern of serious, continued infractions,” Williamson said.

The commissioners also discussed whether Steinman’s omission was grounds for denying her employment with the county.

“Ignorance doesn’t mean anything anymore,” Dyes said. “The jail is full of people who said they didn’t know that they did anything wrong. The standards are supposed to be the same for everybody.”

Steinman, who was also present at the meeting, said she was shocked that her prior conviction resurfaced, as she has held numerous jobs since then where it was never an issue.

“It happened 20 years ago. I never thought it would come up again,” she said. “I even have a concealed weapons permit. It has never come up before now.”

The decision to reaffirm Stieinman as finance director was made by roll call vote, with Chairman Robert Wagel and commissioners Williamson, Dixie Ann File and E. Clark Cobb voting in the affirmative. Commissioners Dye, Roseanne Marchetti and Robert Ziliak voted against her appointment.