DES MOINES – A Senate Oversight Committee hearing will be held at 10:30 AM on Wednesday at the Iowa Statehouse to address troubling acts from the Branstad Administration.
The topic of the hearing will be: A Failure to Manage: Secret Settlements and Hush Money Payments, Blacklisting Employees, Cronyism in State Hiring.
The following speakers will testify under oath:
Ryan Lamb, former DAS Legal Counsel
Mike Carroll, Former Director, Iowa Dept. of Administrative Services
Doug Woodley, Ex-COO of DAS General Services Enterprises
Paul Carlson, DAS Chief Maximization Officer
Jodi Tymeson, Commandant, Iowa Veterans Home
Janet Phipps, Director, DAS
Bill West, DAS employee
Michelle Minnahan, DAS Human Resources Director
Democrats on Monday said that despite Governor Branstad’s one-week, closed-door review of secret settlements made over a three-year period to former state workers by his administration, many questions are still unanswered:
o Who authorized the payments and why?
o Where did the money come from? Was it misappropriated?
o Why did use of the state employment blacklist dramatically increased by the Branstad Administration, especially at the Iowa Veterans Home?
o Is the Branstad Administration ignoring or violating state laws regarding public employment by not failing to make public job openings, replacing civil servants with personal friends and political cronies, resulting in higher costs and lower quality services.
o Have personal investigations of state employee misconduct been ignored or improperly quashed by the Branstad Administration, in some cases involving actions by the Governor’s office.
The hearing can be watched live, here.
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