Alamance County’s government has sacked 22 employees over the past 18 months for reasons that have ranged from shoddy workmanship and insubordination to one case where a veteran health department official was let go for failing to report a crime against a juvenile.
UPDATE AND CORRECTION FROM THE COUNTY – Published July 9, 2026
Alamance County’s administrators have belatedly discovered some errors in a list of staff-level disciplinary actions that they had sent to The Alamance News in response to a public records request.
According to Alamance County’s attorney Rik Stevens, the county had mistakenly included the non-disciplinary demotions of Nierron Drewery, Tavira Evans, Blanca Gonsales, and Rhonda Spruill in the version of the list that it passed along to the newspaper.
The Alamance News went on to publish this list on May 1. In an accompanying article, the newspaper described these four demotions as disciplinary, which Stevens conceded was “consistent with the information the county had provided.”
“Upon further review,” he added in an email on Thursday, “those actions were each voluntary, non-punitive demotions and were not disciplinary in nature.”
The Alamance News has learned of these 22 dismissals through a public records request for data on all disciplinary actions that the county had carried out since August of 2024.
Under North Carolina’s public records law, units of state and local government are obligated to disclose certain details about their staff members even though the personnel files of these same individuals are deemed confidential. In addition to the names, titles, dates of employment, and salaries of their employees, public sector employers must also reveal changes in an employee’s job status, including any suspensions, demotions, or departures that occur for disciplinary reasons. In the case of an involuntary dismissal, the public employer has to release some explanation of the staff member’s termination upon request.
The Alamance News had previously obtained this disciplinary information from the county’s personnel office in the summer of 2024 as part of a mass call for public records from the area’s largest local government employers.
Earlier this year, the newspaper sent the county a follow-up request that sought to pick up where the prior release of data had left off.
In response, the county’s personnel office has passed along information about 45 disciplinary actions that had taken place against 42 employees since August 30, 2024. These actions included 13 suspensions, 10 demotions, and 22 dismissals – although three employees had been subject to multiple actions during this period.
According to these records, the sheriff’s office has led other county departments in employee discipline – having enforced 22 disciplinary actions against 19 staff members during the past year and a half. The social services department nevertheless placed first in total dismissals – with its 8 terminations narrowly edging out the 7 who were dropped from the sheriff’s payroll.
Suspense over suspensions
Under state law, counties and municipalities are required to provide “date and type of each promotion, demotion, transfer, suspension, separation, or other change in position classification.” This directive appears in two parallel state statutes that apply, separately, to county and municipal personnel.
Unlike the cities and towns that the newspaper has contacted as part of this series, Alamance County has an idiosyncratically narrow interpretation of this statutory mandate when it comes to the dates of disciplinary suspensions. While municipal officials have readily disclosed the number of days that an employee was on involuntary leave, Alamance County has declined to reveal anything other than the start date of the staff member’s suspension. According to county attorney Rik Stevens, this information is the sum total of everything the relevant statute permits him to share with the newspaper.
“The County’s disclosure is what G.S. § 153A-98(b)(11) requires,” the county attorney asserted in an email to the newspaper’s publisher on Tuesday. “Duration, end dates, and paid/unpaid status are not enumerated in the public list and are therefore confidential…The county has fully and faithfully complied with the law.”
In an earlier interview, Alamance County’s manager Heidi York had confirmed that all of the county’s disciplinary suspensions are, indeed, unpaid.
The information that the county was willing to provide about suspensions and demotions appears in an accompanying table.
[Story continues below chart summarizing disciplinary actions.]
And they’re out…
The county was more in line with it peers when it came to its release of records about involuntary dismissals.
The county’s personnel office has provided a one-page dismissal notice for each employee who had been fired during the time frame of the newspaper’s public records request. These notices seem to have undergone some sort of standardization since the newspaper’s previous request, which had elicited varying levels of specificity from different county departments. By and large, the county has become less explicit as its disclosures have gotten more uniform, and the explanations provided are now limited to boiler plate citations of personnel policies rather than detailed narratives about the employee’s purported misconduct.
Long-timer leaves health dept.
One of the most evocative notices, even under the county’s newly systematized disclosures, concerns Elizabeth Sciora, who had been with the county’s health department for nearly three decades before her dismissal on March 19, 2025. Originally hired on October 1, 1997, Sciora was an “Advanced Practice Provider II” with a salary of $119,597.40 when she lost her job due to “unacceptable personal conduct” that violated either “state or federal law.” Sciora’s dismissal notice goes on to pinpoint her particular breach as a “failure to report crimes against a juvenile.”
Sheriff sheds seven
Sciora was, by far, the seniormost staff member to be fired during the past year and a half. Yet, she wasn’t the only veteran employee to lose her job involuntarily.
The sheriff’s office also bid adieu to a number of staff members who had a few years of service under their belts.
These long-serving staff members included Thomas Ryan, a detention sergeant who had been in the county’s employ since October 1, 2007. According to his dismissal notice, Ryan was terminated for “unbecoming conduct” on December 31, 2024. His salary at the time of his departure was $$77,471.13 a year.
The date of Ryan’s dismissal coincided with the termination of Joshua Brogden, a Detention Officer III who had been with the county since January 6, 2020. Brogden, like Ryan, was dismissed for conduct unbecoming. His salary had been $62,075.41.
On December 6, 2024, the sheriff discharged Daryl Rosenberry, a Detention Officer I who had been with the agency since November 18, 2024. Rosenberry was making $57,707.77 when he was fired for “unbecoming conduct” and “unsatisfactory performance” after less than a month on the job.
Another discharge for conduct unbecoming occurred on February 2 of this year when the sheriff’s office severed its ties with Michael Apple, who had been serving as a Deputy III with a salary of $78,976.36. Originally hired on December 13, 2011, Apple had held the rank of sergeant until he was demoted on October 17, 2025 with a corresponding reduction in pay of $7,563,60.
Also on October 17 of last year, the sheriff parted ways with Alexis Hollan, a Deputy III who had joined the force on August 25, 2025. Hollan, who was making $60,815.87 at the time of her departure, was reportedly let go for “unbecoming conduct,” “neglect of duties,” and an unspecified “violation of rules.”
“Neglect of duty” was also indicated, along with “insubordination,” when the sheriff’s office dismissed Crystal Walker from her job as a Detention Officer I on October 23, 2024. An employee of the sheriff since November 6, 2023, Walker was making $55,394.94 when she was terminated.
The sheriff’s most recent involuntary departure occurred on February 12 of this year when Perry Jones was let go from his post as a detention corporal. An employee of the sheriff since May 28, 2019, Jones had allegedly breached the county’s policies on “harassment” and “truthfulness” while committing an unspecified “violation on rules.” His salary at the time of his termination was $69,583.26.
Misc. conduct
Some of the less common reasons for dismissal from the county’s employ include “unacceptable personal conduct,” which cut short the career of Varlese Hall-Grady, a library circulation assistant who joined the county’s library system on November 20, 2015. Grady was making $18.32 an hour when she was taken out of circulation on June 12, 2025.
The county’s department of social services likewise took umbrage with the personal behavior of Anitra Raybon, an Income Maintenance Caseworker II who had been with the county since February 1, 2021. On July 11, 2025, DSS fired Raybon for “unacceptable personal conduct” that entailed her “continued absence” after exhausting her “leave credits” and other allowances. Her salary at the time was $44,353.20 a year.
DSS cited another instance of unacceptable personal conduct in fellow Income Maintenance Caseworker II Sharrell Summers, who had been with the agency from November 6, 2023 until July 16, 2025. Summers further informed that “another staff member” had found her “unprofessional” habits as “intimidating and/or harassing,” resulting in her termination. Her salary at the time of her departure was $44,792.34.
Meanwhile, on October 24, 2024, Sarah Godwin lost her job as a telecommunicator with the county’s 9-1-1 center after she reportedly misused county Internet resources “for commercial or personal advertisements.” Godwin, who had been hired on February 28, 2022, was making $46,695.12 a year when her connection to the county’s payroll was cut.
On March 6, 2025, Chrissy Cobb lost a position as a Social Worker III for a “material falsification” on a “state application or other employment documentation.” A staff member with the department of social services since October 9, 2023, Cobb was earning a salary of $57,797.71 a year when she got the message to update her resume.
The department of social services was particularly explicit when it fired Jhordan Gunter from his job as a Social Worker I on June 13, 2025. Gunter, who had joined the agency’s staff on May 28 of the previous year, was admonished for “unsatisfactory job performance” that had included his “failure to produce work of acceptable quality, accuracy, quantity, promptness, work habits, or by established deadlines;” had exhibited “deficiencies” noted in his work plan or performance review; and was reportedly prone to “absenteeism, tardiness, or other abuses of work time.”
Beginners struck
A fair number of the county’s involuntary departures have been individuals who hadn’t completed their probationary periods when they were told that their services would no longer be needed. Each of these newbies received a boiler plate notice from the county that alluded to their probationary status and cited their “inability to consistently follow directions, comply with established policies, and satisfactorily perform the assigned duties of [their] positions.”
The recipients of these notices included Stella Oh, a Circulation Assistant II with a salary of $13.04 an hour, who joined the county’s library system on April 22, 2024 and left on October 17 of the same year; Lanae Medley, a Library Assistant II with a salary of $40,606.71, who joined the library system on May 5, 2025 and left on July 8 of the same year; Treisha Dyer, a client services coordinator with a salary of $66,300, who worked for the county’s family justice center from April 7, 2025 until January 2 of this year; and Leslie Velazquez, a telecommunicator with a salary of $45,675.96, who joined the county’s 9-1-1 center on August 7, 2025 and left on January 7 of this year.
The department of social services was a bit more precise with the people it terminated during their 12-month probationary periods.
Ellie Mathis, who went to work as an Income Maintenance Caseworker II on July 14, 2025, was informed on January 13 of this year that she had could clean out her desk because she had failed to show “sustained improvement in performance, accuracy, and compliance” even with remedial efforts. Her salary at the time was $43,914 a year.
On November 18, 2024, DSS removed Lakeeta Sifford from its roster due to her “inability to perform the duties” of a Social Worker III – a post she assumed on June 10 of the same year. Sifford had been making a salary of $53,965.82 a year.
Meanwhile, income maintenance case workers Bridget Kunz and Tisha Jenkins were let go on April 9 and May 8, 2025, respectively, for their “absenteeism.” Kunz, who joined DSS on February 24, 2025, and Jenkins, who began on December 16, 2024, were each making $43,053 when they were sacked.
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