Overview:
• The lawsuit said Dale Folwell violated Justine Jones’ civil rights when he stopped Spring Lake from hiring her.
• Folwell dinged Jones over a 2016 civil rights lawsuit she filed against a previous employer. It’s illegal to penalize someone for lodging complaints about violations of their rights.
• Jones had a turbulent time at her previous town manager job in 2022. The town’s entire police department and two other employees quit shortly after she started.
In October 2022, Spring Lake’s town board tried to hire Justine Jones to be its town manager. Then-state Treasurer Dale Folwell squashed that choice.
Folwell’s decision cost the state $320,000 to settle a civil rights lawsuit with Jones.
This is the third time since 2016 that Jones has been in a lawsuit with a government entity over her employment.
Jones last year sued Folwell—who left office in 2024 after a failed run for governor—and the Department of the State Treasurer. She alleged that Folwell illegally blocked her hiring in Spring Lake because she sued Richland County, South Carolina, where she worked from 2012 to 2015.
On May 7, Jones dropped her lawsuit against Folwell and the treasurer’s office in exchange for the $320,000, according to court records and the terms of her settlement agreement with the state. The settlement provides that a third of the $320,000 is for lost wages, one third is “for alleged non-economic injury,” and one third is for the law firm that represented Banks.
“The parties have mutually agreed to resolve the matter with no admission of fault or liability on the part of either party,” the office said in a news release on Friday.
The settlement also required the treasurer’s office to publish the news release to announce the settlement. The office must keep that news release online, and in a way that internet search engines can find it, for at least one year. The wording of the news release is dictated in the settlement agreement.
The news release said the treasurer’s department “always strives to comply with all relevant laws,” and the decision to block Jones from being hired by Spring Lake “was not intended to suggest that Ms. Jones acted improperly with respect to any legal action she may have taken in the past or to opine on her qualifications to serve in other public administration roles.”
It concludes with, “The parties consider the matter fully resolved and will have no further comment.”
Jones on Monday published a statement on her website about the settlement.
“As reflected in the State’s public statement, the Local Government Commission’s decision regarding my appointment as Town Manager of Spring Lake was not a reflection of my professional competence, integrity, or qualifications to serve in public leadership roles,” she said. “Prior to that decision, I had been selected by the Town following a formal process, and I remain proud of that selection and the work that led to it.”
From One Troubled Town to Another
Before the Spring Lake town board voted in October 2022 to hire Jones, she had been the town manager of Kenly in Johnston County.
According to court records and the Johnston County Report, she was hired May 9, 2022, she started work on June 2, 2022, and the Kenly town board fired her on August 30, 2022. Her annual salary was $92,000.
In between Jones’ hiring and firing, the Kenly police chief and all four of the town’s full-time police officers resigned on July 20, 2022, the Johnston County Report said. So did the assistant town manager and the town utilities clerk. The employees cited a “toxic” or “hostile” work environment, The Associated Press reported.
The Kenly town board had an outside investigator review the complaints against Jones.
“This matter was fully investigated and the allegations of hostile work environment against Justine Jones were not substantiated, and there was no finding of wrongdoing or misconduct by Ms. Jones,” the town said in a news release dated November 16, 2022. “The unsubstantiated allegations against Ms. Jones which subjected her and the Town to unfair and unwarranted media attention were not the basis for the Town’s decision to terminate her contract. Instead, the Town opted to move in a different direction with its leadership in an effort to improve efficiency and reduce distractions.”
Jones in August 2024 sued Kenly for breach of contract for firing her. In June 2025, the town settled the lawsuit for $90,000: $46,000 to Jones—her contract’s severance fee of half her salary—plus $44,000 to her lawyers.
In the meantime, Spring Lake was under its own pressures.
The North Carolina Local Government Commission took control of Spring Lake’s finances in October 2021, following years of mismanagement by the town board and corruption, including embezzlement, among some employees.
The town was not allowed to spend money without permission from the commission.
The commission is a nine-person board plus a support staff that operates within the Department of the State Treasurer. The board and staff monitor the fiscal health of city, town, and county governments. The local governments are not allowed to borrow money without the commission’s permission.
A year after Spring Lake’s takeover, in October 2022, the town board voted 3-2 to hire Jones to be the new town manager. The decision drew attention thanks to media coverage of Jones’ tenure in Kenly.
The Treasurer Steps In
Folwell, the state treasurer, quickly issued a news release criticizing Spring Lake’s decision, CityView reported.
“New and unsettling information has come to light about the past employment history of the individual who was offered the job. That information does not generate confidence that she is the right fit at this time to lead Spring Lake,” he said.
“It has since been learned that Jones also had a rocky employment relationship with Richland County, South Carolina. After Richland County terminated her employment, Jones filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint that was dismissed and then sued the County,” he said, according to Jones’ lawsuit against him.
Because Spring Lake’s finances were under the control of the Local Government Commission, the town couldn’t pay Jones without its permission. Folwell was the commission chair.
The commission in December 2022 sent Spring Lake a letter formally denying approval of Spring Lake’s contract to hire Jones, and the town canceled its offer to hire her.
Jones sued Folwell and the state treasurer’s office in August 2025. Jones dropped the case on May 7 following the settlement.
Lawsuit in South Carolina
Folwell’s comments about Jones’ civil rights lawsuit against Richland County became the crux of Jones’ lawsuit against him and the North Carolina state treasurer department.
Jones’ lawsuit asserted that Folwell’s comments and the commission’s actions qualified as illegal retaliation against her for suing Richland County. It is illegal to retaliate against someone for making complaints of civil rights violations, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
She filed her Richland County lawsuit in 2016. In that litigation, she said she held management positions in the county government and set up a new department during her tenure from December 2012 to March, 2015, when she was fired.
Some of Jones’ claims:
- Her supervisor and others in the county government treated her poorly and sought to remove her from her position as an assistant director because she is Black.
- She was paid less than her white male counterparts and was penalized for taking leave as permitted under the Family and Medical Leave Act. Further, when her medical provider recommended she work four days per week for six weeks while she recuperated from medical conditions, the county required her to be in the office five days a week though with reduced hours each day.
- She suffered retaliation for being a whistleblower after she reported what she saw as an attempt to commit fraud in a government program.
In 2017, Jones settled the lawsuit with Richland County for $175,000, according to the now-defunct Quorum Columbia.
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
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