Wrongly fired state employee will get $263K

Taxpayers will reimburse a wrongly fired Iowa government employee whose coworkers lied under oath to oust him at least $263,400, a decision made public today shows.
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Included in the reimbursements to Ken Morrow is $8,000 for the loss he had to sell his home at in June because he could no longer make mortgage payments.

The state will also reimburse Morrow nearly $9,000 in moving expenses; $28,622 for health care premiums and almost $2,300 for supplemental Medicare health coverage costs his wife had to purchase because they were kicked off of the state employee health plan.

Morrow was reinstated to a maintenance manager position in July.

Morrow and DOT manager Steve Scott were both fired in 2012 after multiple employees – including some managers -- lied under oath and took advantage of Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds in an effort to oust people considered "outsiders," Administrative Law Judge Bob Wilson ruled earlier this year.

Scott has also been reinstated. His reimbursements were settled last month, costing taxpayers $158,000.

Both men are now seeking the state additionally pay their legal expenses, a sum that is estimated to be at least another $150,000, according to their West Des Moines attorney Mark Sherinian.

Sherinian said the state has not taken any steps to penalize the employees who lied. The Branstad administration last month declined to say if such steps have been taken, saying the information is a personnel matter and does not have to be released under the state's open records law.

One of those employees — Jim Armstrong, deemed by a judge to have provided inaccurate testimony — supervises Scott and participated in his welcome back introduction last month. Another, Matt McCann, has been promoted, Sherinian said.

"It is absolutely obvious to me when you add the lying and lack of consequences, the only explanation is that Armstrong is the scapegoat for this mechanism of political pressure at a much higher level," Sherinian said this morning.

Scott and Morrow were longtime DOT employees and had been promoted to the Osceola-based maintenance garage from other assignments. They alleged that a group of veteran employees there conspired against them, partly because they had landed jobs that group members believed were rightfully theirs or belonged to their friends.

The veteran Osceola workers claimed Scott and Morrow participated in or allowed workplace safety violations and failed to require work crews to live nearby, according to documents in the case. At one point, Reynolds and Rep. Joel Fry made inquiries into the matter, which both men said created an atmosphere of political pressure that ultimately resulted in their being fired.

Scott and Morrow both previously said they rejected settlement offers from the Branstad administration — deals that would have had confidentiality clauses prohibiting them from speaking publicly about their ousters.

The confidential requests are noteworthy since Branstad's administration has been at the center of controversy this year over its use of confidential settlement deals — a total of 42 since 2011 at a cost of around $700,000. The matter continues to be the subject of investigation by the Senate Government Oversight Committee.

"I really do think the cronyism we've seen in the Branstad administration is an epidemic and it needs to stop," Sherinian said.