DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - With the legislative session adjourned, members of the Senate Government Oversight Committee are poised to renew an investigation into state employment issues aided by the authority to subpoena witnesses, place them under oath and fine or imprison them if they won’t comply.
The committee gained that authority through a resolution passed as the last Senate action of the 2014 session on Friday.
Empowering the committee with subpoena power is unusual but has been done before.
It happened last in 2006 when a scandal enveloped the Central Iowa Employment and Training Consortium, a nonprofit agency that administered programs for Iowa Workforce Development. An investigation found more than $2.5 million was misspent on executive bonuses and salaries. A Democrat, Tom Vilsack, was governor then and Republicans legislators directed the investigation.
Some people leading the agency went to prison and the courts ordered millions of dollars to be repaid.
This time it’s a Republican governor in charge and Democrats holding a majority in the Senate seeking information.
The committee’s questioning of Iowa Department of Administrative Services Director Mike Carroll on April 3 led to his dismissal by Gov. Terry Branstad five days later. Carroll told the committee no offers had been made for silence in settlement agreements with former state workers. Branstad publicly stood by him, but after a former worker released emails showing a Department of Administrative Services attorney had negotiated payments for silence following a lay off in 2011, Carroll was fired.
The oversight committee has tried since then to learn who authorized the “hush money” payments in settlement agreements.
Branstad said his office did not know of the secret settlements. Several other DAS officials have told the committee they also don’t know who authorized them.
Executive branch agencies have signed more than 300 agreements that resolved disputes with employees since Branstad became governor in 2011, including two dozen with payments totaling $500,000.
Last week The Associated Press reported Iowa’s public universities have paid more than $1.3 million to resolve employment disputes in 150 settlement agreements approved by the Iowa Board of Regents since 2011.
Since no one has come forward to divulge who in the Branstad administration authorized the money and where it came from, the committee needs authority to subpoena witnesses and placed them under oath, said Democratic Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal.
“The goal of this investigation is to find out what happened, how it happened, and, most importantly, suggest policy changes to prevent this from happening again,” he said. “Taxpayer money was wasted, state employees were unable to serve the public to the best of their ability, citizens suffered, and the will of the voters was frustrated.”
The resolution authorizes the committee to investigate confidential settlement agreements with former employees and related payments; hiring and employment practices; and bidding, purchasing, and contracting policies and practices at the Department of Administrative Services and other state departments and agencies. It also authorizes an investigation into allegations that undue political pressure was asserted over administrative law judges in unemployment cases to favor of employers.
The committee may cite a witness for contempt and impose a $500 fine for the first violation and a $1,000 fine and imprisonment for up to six months for subsequent violations.
Senate Government Oversight Committee Chairwoman Janet Petersen, a Des Moines Democrat, said she is examining 5,000 emails received from government agencies at her request. Another 3,300 are being reviewed by the attorney general’s office for sensitive information that may need to be blacked out before release.
She expects the emails to reveal information that may help set a direction for the committee’s next step.
Petersen said key individuals in state government and some former employees need to be called in for questioning and she’ll see if they come willingly before issuing a subpoena.
“I’m interested in being able to issue an oath first on the people I think we need to talk to so we can get to the full truth,” she said.
Mike Carroll may be asked to return under oath. Former DAS attorney Ryan Lamb, whose name appears on email documents discussing money for silence in settlement agreements, may be asked to testify.
Lamb, who left state government just before the controversy over the agreements became public, works for a construction contractor.
Petersen said she hopes to have the first hearing before the end of May.
Branstad’s spokesman Jimmy Centers said the administration has provided thousands of documents and answered all the Senate Democrats’ questions during committee meetings.
“Our office, as we’ve done all along, will continue to provide information relevant to their requests,” he said in a statement. “Confidentiality provisions, though common in the private sector, were ill-advised for use in the public sector.”
He pointed out that Branstad banned them by signing an executive order days after he learned they had been used.
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