Another Ballard Employee Cashing In On Public Service

Department of Public Works Director Lori Miser will be rewarded for services rendered to one of the many consulting firms awarded no-bid contracts during Mayor Greg Ballard's two terms as Indianapolis mayor. Miser is joining HNTB Corp., which has made generous campaign contributions to Ballard's campaign committee, as associate vice president of planning. Miser previously worked for Parsons Brinkerhoff, as well as HNTB, before joining the Department of Public Works. She left the Department briefly to work for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization. Her husband works as a code inspector for the City of Carmel. The City of Indianapolis has one of the weakest ethics laws in the country, making it very easy for key city employees to curry favor with city contractors in exchange for six-figure employment opportunities immediately upon leaving their government employment. Campaign contributions from consulting firms like HNTB dwarf all other sources of the Mayor's campaign contributions due to the lack of any competitive bidding procedures for these no-bid contracts, which total in the tens of millions of dollars every year. Gross over-billing is commonplace, and nobody within government has an incentive to weed out the corruption..