Democrats: Questions don’t stop with DAS director’s firing

DES MOINES – Democratic senators Wednesday applauded Gov. Terry Branstad's termination of an agency director tied to secret employee settlements but said more firings may be appropriate and action is needed to keep documents related to their ongoing probe from being destroyed.

Branstad told reporters he was 'very disappointed” when he was presented with documents indicating that the state Department of Administrative Services (DAS) offered money to laid-off employees in exchange for them agreeing to keep the settlements secret.

That was contrary to what now-former DAS Director Mike Carroll had told him and when he found out otherwise Tuesday, he fired Carroll and replaced him with Janet Phipps as the department's interim director.

'There was new evidence that came out contrary to what he assured me,” Branstad said. 'I felt that it was appropriate to terminate him. We did that.”

Sen. Janet Petersen, D-Des Moines, co-leader of the Legislature's Government Oversight Committee, said she hoped the governor would dispatch Iowa State Patrol troopers to DAS to secure the paper and electronic records relevant to the secret settlements issues so they are not destroyed or modified. She also called on the governor to place Doug Woodley, DAS general services enterprise chief operating officer, and Paul Carlson, DAS chief resource maximization officer, on unpaid administrative leave until the full extent of their involvement in the matters can be determined.

'We can't tolerate having the governor's team lie to the Legislature, so I think the governor took the right step in letting him go,” Petersen said of Carroll's firing.

Branstad said he had 'full confidence” in Phipps, a retired Iowa National Guard general who has worked in state government before, to conduct a 'thoughtful and careful” review of past actions by the agency's staff and to 'see that things were done appropriately and all records are preserved and protected.”

The governor indicated that problems associated with alleged payments for employee silence were linked to former DAS attorney Ryan Lamb's role in negotiating settlements with confidentiality clauses before leaving state government six weeks ago. However, Petersen said she believes there is more to the story.

'We believe that the story delves deeper into the department and we want to make sure that the documents and the electronic files don't get destroyed.

'I believe it goes beyond the Department of Administrative Services,” Petersen told reporters. 'I do believe there's a chance that more people should be let go. We're going to do our homework, though.”

Branstad said his chief of staff, Matt Hinch, talked with Lamb as part of his administration's internal probe that concluded no so-called 'hush money” was added to employee settlements along with a confidentiality clause -- a practice the governor says run counter to his goals of open, transparent government. 'I'm not in a position to judge if what he said was truthful or not,” Branstad said.

During a Senate floor speech, Sen. Matt McCoy, D-Des Moines, said he was concerned by a statement Carroll made to the Des Moines Register that he did not lie when he told lawmakers last week that there was no pay for silence because he was relying on briefings and information supplied by his assistants.

'It occurred to me that if Director Carroll was bamboozled by his staff, who was involved in bamboozling Director Carroll and who was involved in bamboozling the governor's secret investigative team?” said McCoy, an Oversight Committee member.

'This is a travesty,” he told his Senate colleagues. He said the Oversight Committee 'is going to need to visit with each and every one of the people involved in briefing these folks,” as well as members of the governor's three-person internal review team.

Petersen said she concurred with that assessment. The committee was scheduled to meet Wednesday to discuss personnel issues and grievance procedures related to state government hiring and firing decisions but the meeting was postponed at the request of the governor's office, she said.

Petersen said she expects to resume committee hearings next week for further discussions with DAS officials and other Branstad administration officials who have had a role in the execution and review of confidential employee settlements and allegations of cronyism and 'spoils system” in hiring practices.

'Today we were told by the governor's office he feels like his work here is done by firing the director,” Petersen said. 'Unfortunately, I don't believe he's getting good information. We believe this problem stems much deeper into his administration than DAS and other departments.”