Iowa pays $600K to settle suit with former state agency spokeswoman

DES MOINES — A former state agency spokeswoman and her lawyers will receive $600,000 from the state to settle a lawsuit in which she claimed she was fired for fulfilling open-records requests during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The State Appeal Board on Wednesday approved the $600,000 payment from the State of Iowa to Polly Carver-Kimm, a former spokeswoman for the Iowa Department of Public Health.

Carver-Kimm alleged that from March to July 2020 on multiple occasions she was reprimanded and had job duties taken away for fulfilling open-records requests to journalists. Carver-Kimm agreed to an involuntary termination in July 2020, according to court documents.

Carver-Kimm sued the state later that year.

The parties reached the settlement agreement Sept. 29, one week before the suit was schedule to go to trial, according to court records.

Under the conditions of the settlement agreement, the state does not admit to any liability in the case. Carver-Kimm will receive $310,000 and her lawyers $290,000.

“We are pleased with the settlement of Polly’s wrongful firing case against the State of Iowa,” Carver-Kimm’s lawyers with the Duff Law Firm said in a statement emailed to The Gazette. “She was fired more than five years ago simply for doing her job. As the records custodian for the Department of Health it was her responsibility to make sure that the public’s business remained public. She did exactly that at great cost to herself and her family. Iowa needs more public servants with principle and conviction like Polly Carver-Kimm.”

The State Appeal Board approved the settlement with a 2-1 vote during its regular meeting Wednesday.

The State Appeal Board signs off on legal payments made by state offices and agencies. The panel is comprised of the state auditor, treasurer and director of the state budget office; currently those officeholders are Auditor Rob Sand, Treasurer Roby Smith and Department of Management Director Kraig Paulsen.

Smith and Paulsen, both Republicans, approved the settlement payment by the state. Sand, a Democrat, voted against it.

Sand said the state should not be on the hook for the settlement payment; he argued the plaintiffs in the case — former Iowa Department of Public Health Director Gerd Clabaugh and then-deputy director of the agency Sarah Reisetter — should be.

Carver-Kimm’s lawsuit originally also included Gov. Kim Reynolds and her then-spokesman Pat Garrett, but the Iowa Supreme Court in 2023 dismissed them from the case, ruling that state law does not grant agency hiring and firing authority to the governor or her staff.

Sand has made similar arguments in the past when voting against settlements for cases involving sexual harassment, the University of Iowa football program and other open records law violations.

Sand says state law allows the state to hold state workers individually responsible for damages in certain lawsuits.

“Given that Iowa law says in all three relevant sections that public servants who violate these laws should be held personally responsible for damages, I am again disgusted that taxpayers should be forced to foot the bill,” Sand said in a statement. “As a prosecutor, I know the threat of punishment deters crime. Holding political insiders personally liable for intentionally and repeatedly breaking the law means they have some skin in the game. They might think twice about behaving badly if they’re the ones writing the settlement checks.”

Mason Mauro, a spokesman for Reynolds, said the settlement was intended to “mitigate risk,” and is not an admission of guilt.

"The State of Iowa continues to deny that any employee of the Iowa Department of Public Health or the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services violated the law,“ Mauro said in a statement to The Gazette. ”Like businesses and organizations everywhere, the state occasionally settles lawsuits to mitigate risk and avoid the cost and uncertainty of litigation. Settlements are not admissions of wrongdoing—they are practical decisions made in the best interests of taxpayers.

“Iowa’s public servants deserve better than to be used as pawns in Rob Sand’s political games,” Mauro added.

Iowa Freedom of Information Council President and Chief Executive Randy Evans said he is “troubled” by the case and the settlement as both a taxpayer and an advocate for open and accountable government.

“Payment of $600,000 of the taxpayers’ money is a clear signal that state officials know they had botched their treatment of Polly Carver-Kimm,” Evans said in an emailed statement to The Gazette. “But the case’s underlying allegations should bother all Iowans — that Carver-Kimm was forced out of her job because she complied with the requirements of the public records law during the COVID pandemic. The tight control by Gov. Reynolds’ administrators on the release of public records and information during the pandemic is inexcusable. And the taxpayers are paying the price.”

Reynolds’ office in 2023 settled three lawsuits alleging her administration violated the state’s open records law by failing to respond to records requests in a timely manner.

Comments: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com

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Download: pck settlement 11-5.pdf