An investigation found no conflict of interest or favors exchanged when a nonprofit health center hired Mecklenburg County Commission Chair Harold Cogdell to do legal work, two months after Cogdell pushed the board to give the center an additional $110,000.

Findings of the independent probe by U.S. ISS Agency of Huntersville were released Friday and will be addressed by the board at its regular meeting Tuesday.

Cogdell, a Democrat and Charlotte lawyer who'd been hired last August by C.W. Williams Community Health Center on "an as-needed basis," called for the independent investigation to restore any lost credibility - after some commissioners voiced concerns about a conflict of interest.

Cogdell had asked for the additional money during a budget workshop last June 2 so the center could hire another physician to treat the homeless. Commissioner Vilma Leake first asked for a $2,000 increase on top of what County Manager Harry Jones recommended. But Cogdell urged the board to boost the additional funds to $110,000. The board approved Cogdell's motion in a 6-3 vote.

The report shows that C.W. Williams approached Cogdell in mid-July about representing the center in some legal matters concerning a federal audit. Before signing a contract, Cogdell met separately with Jones and county attorney Marvin Bethune to get their opinions on whether the relationship would create a conflict of interest.

Both said that it wouldn't, the report said, but agreed that if an issue concerning C.W. Williams came up before the board that Cogdell should recuse himself from the matter.

The ISS report said there was no evidence of impropriety on Cogdell's part and no favors had been exchanged "in the attorney-client relationship" between Cogdell and C.W. Williams. The investigation also concluded that Cogdell hadn't violated the county's code of ethics and that no issues involving C.W. Williams had come before the board since commissioners amended Jones' budget.

Cogdell couldn't be reached Friday.

Another Democratic commissioner, George Dunlap, first brought up concerns about the hiring at the Dec. 6 meeting, the night Cogdell upset members of his own party by allying with the board's four Republicans to oust Democrat Jennifer Roberts as chair.

Friday, Dunlap said he wished he'd known that Cogdell had met with Jones and Bethune before signing the contract. "It's all about communication," he said. Still, he felt the relationship "didn't look good."

"I thought it'd be a waste to do an investigation because I didn't think they would find anything," Dunlap said. "If you are proposing an increase for a particular organization and then you end up working for that organization, it leads to suspicions - whether there's anything or not."

Dunlap said $15,000 was set aside for the investigation.

Meanwhile, in a separate investigation, Bethune concluded that Dunlap and the other commissioners didn't violate the county's code of ethics by withholding information of the working relationship between Cogdell and C.W. Williams. Dunlap said a caller had told him about it a week before the Dec. 6 commission meeting, Bethune wrote in his report.

Other commissioners knew about it for a shorter period, or didn't hear about it until the meeting, Bethune wrote.