Comments on Advance Indiana™: Okeson Departs CIB; Lathrop Defends Potesta

Yeah, Roy Templeton had that conflict. The Genera...

2011-01-17T00:44:25.719-05:00

Yeah, Roy Templeton had that conflict. The General Counsel of DWD at that time, Teresa Voors, was the head lawyer who should have advised of the financial conflict (but according to the governor when he fired David Lott Hardy, he takes care of issues when they happen). What did the governor later do? He made Teresa Voors the Commissioner.

The Inspector General's office did get around to this conflict, but only after the U.S. Department of Labor's Inspector General told them about it. Our I.G. then did an investigation which found numerous other problems, but nothing was really done. They did tell DWD to appoint a "Chief Ethics Officer" and "Complaince" person to monitor these issues, so DWD created YET ANOTHER deputy commissioner position as "Chief Compliance and Ethics Officer" (there are now 8 positions -- 7 filled -- for deputy commissioners there, not including the commissioner himself. There were only 4 deputy commissioners plus the commissioner as late as 2008.)

I will just say the person appointed as the latest "Ethics Officer" is an interesting choice as ethics go.

Don't forget the big IT contract Stiver allowe...

2011-01-16T12:00:01.439-05:00

Don't forget the big IT contract Stiver allowed the IT manager he hired to turn around and give a big contract to the company the IT manager formerly owned and from which he was receiving buyout payments. Another one of those many conflict of interests that have gone unnoticed by the state's inspector general.

Ahh, Ron Stiver, the man who began the pile of rub...

2011-01-16T11:35:59.501-05:00

Ahh, Ron Stiver, the man who began the pile of rubble that is now Mitch Daniels' DWD. The man who gave all unemployment claims adjudicators one week in July 2005 to quit or move to Indianapolis from every corner of the state -- the loss of hundreds (probably well over a thousand) of combined years' experience and institutional knowledge which has and never will be replaced.

The man who signed a contract with politically-connected Haverstick Consulting of Carmel, check that, Indianapolis (thanks to IEDC tax breaks!) for its "Unemployment Modernization" contract.

The contract which was to have the now continually-embarrassing unemployment computer system done in April 2008 for $23.9 million, but is now been extended over a dozen times and is three years over and costing at least $35.8 million now (and probably about to increase again).

The man who kept saying to the press how badly Kernan's or O'Bannon's DWD had been doing (even if statistically and in most realities that was a lie) and then set DWD in a course to be one of the worst states in the country in making quality and timely determinations for unemployment while simultaneously giving away over a billion dollars to claimants who didn't deserve it during a four-year period.

Ah, that man is good...let's put him on every board!