In mid-2020, when the coronavirus pandemic was raging in Colorado, Custer County was about to lose its public health director. It would be one of 12 counties in Colorado at that time without one.

But the county got lucky. It found someone who appeared to be qualified in its own backyard: Dr. Clifford Brown, who had moved to Custer County two years before and was hired by the county commissioners, who are also the Board of Public Health, in July.

However, reports have since surfaced calling Brown’s education and qualifications for the position into question. On Monday, commissioners chose to stand by their decision, releasing a statement that they “considered the matter closed.”

At issue was Brown’s claim that he holds a master’s degree in public health from Dartley University, presumably in Wilmington, Del. A series of reports in Custer County’s weekly newspaper, the Wet Mountain Tribune, by publisher Jordan Hedberg, said that the school had no website nor any recent online record of its existence.

On Monday, the Board of Public Health held a special meeting to discuss the statement they intended to send out to the Tribune and Colorado Politics, which learned about the controversy via the Tribune’s Facebook page.

During that meeting, commissioners asked Brown to state on the record that he had attended Dartley and had taken the courses for the degree. Brown did so.

A review of accrediting bodies and other state entities by Colorado Politics found that Delaware has no record of Dartley University’s existence.

The Council on Education for Public Health is an independent agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education to accredit schools of public health, and public health programs outside schools of public health. Laura Rasar King, the council’s executive director, told Colorado Politics the agency has never accredited a degree in public health from Dartley, nor have any record of the university.

The only authoritative references to the institution that Colorado Politics could find online were several books and white papers, the most recent in 2012, that said the school, had no authority to issue valid degrees. It has a similar mention in the 2005 book, “Degree Mills: The Billion-Dollar Industry That has Sold More than a Million Fake Diplomas,” which was written by a former FBI agent and updated in 2012.

The Tribune reported that Brown had told commissioners that he has not been able to contact Dartley for nine years, just three years after he received his degree.

The news release sent to the Tribune and Colorado Politics said Brown produced transcripts — which the county won’t share — of the online courses and a copy of the diploma. Brown told the board that he hadn’t checked to see if Dartley was accredited at the time he attended.

“The county commissioners, who also sit as the Board of Health for Custer County, were given the opportunity to review his transcripts and his diploma and had no reason to question the truth of his explanation,” the release said.

Brown’s salary was not immediately available.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Brown obtained his degree in optometry in1973, from Pacific University in California. He spent the next couple of years in private practice in Canada, and was in the military from 1973 until he retired March 31, 2012. From 2006 to 2008, Brown’s profile shows he earned a Master of Public Health degree from Dartley University.

The board pointed out that a master’s degree in public health is not a statutory requirement, and that Brown’s optometry degree was sufficient to satisfy the requirements.

Minimum qualifications for a public health director, according to state health regulations, require that director to be a physician, public health nurse or other public health professional. If the individual is not a physician, the county shall employ a medical officer to advise the public health director on medical decisions. Records of minutes from board meetings do not show that this was done, according to a Colorado Politics review.

In addition, an optometrist, according to the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus, “receives a doctor of optometry (OD) degree after completing four years of optometry school, preceded by three years or more years of college.” An optometrist, the organization said, is not a medical doctor. In addition, there is no record that Brown has ever been licensed to practice in Colorado, according to the Department of Regulatory Agencies.

There’s an alternate qualification available for nonphysician directors: the candidate shall have a master’s degree in a public health discipline, and, within the last 10 years, have five years of administrative experience in public health or a closely related field, including at least two years supervising public health professionals. None of that experience is noted on Brown’s LinkedIn profile.

Brown has declined to provide an official transcript, which would include a university seal and signature from the university’s degree-granting authority. He’s been asked repeatedly to prove that he has the degree, by the Wet Mountain Tribune and in two open records requests submitted to the county by Colorado Politics. The county attorney, Clint Smith, has declined to say whether the commissioners or the Board of Public Health verified Brown’s credentials via an official transcript.

“Brown’s copies of a diploma and transcripts cannot be considered official or proof that Dartley exists,” a Dec. 17 Tribune report said.

Smith also said, in response to an open records request, that the employment application submitted by Brown is not a public record and that his application is not part of his personnel file.

Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment regulations also require that the county or Board of Public Health submit documentation “summarizing the recruitment efforts for and the qualifications of the newly appointed public health director, on a form prescribed by the department.” That’s supposed to be done within 30 days of hiring.

According to Hedberg, county commissioners were unaware that they were supposed to do that. Colorado Politics asked Smith if the county had fulfilled that requirement. His response: “You will have to ask the CDPHE.”

Brown, through the county’s Department of Public Health, has not responded to a request for comment.

CDPHE has not responded to questions about whether it enforces state law and regulations pertaining to public health directors.