Over the last month, we’ve learned that more than $500,000 in taxpayer dollars have been paid in secret settlements since January 2011 to former state employees who were asked to sign confidentiality agreements.
After weeks of delay and denial, Governor Branstad finally fired a top administration official responsible for “hush money” payments. The Governor has also issued an executive order to end the use of confidentiality agreements, make employee settlements available to taxpayers and increase scrutiny of settlement agreements.
In the Legislature, we are taking our own steps to prevent this from happening again, including:
• Amending all state budget bills to ensure that no taxpayer money is used for secret settlements.
• Amending the Administration & Regulation Budget (SF 2342) to call for an independent audit of “hush money” and secret settlements. The State Auditor will review personnel settlement agreements with terminated state employees, especially the agreements made outside of normal channels. The audit will focus on “hush money” payments, where the money came from and those who authorized secret settlement agreements.
• Approving legislation on who qualifies as an “at-will employee” (SF 2244). In recent years, hundreds of merit employees have been converted to at-will employees. Unlike merit employees, at-will employees can be fired at any time and for any reason. Our legislation allows state employees who had been merit employees to retain their job as merit employees.
Senate Democrats take seriously the oversight of the state budget and taxpayers’ dollars. We expect the money we appropriate to agencies and programs to be used in an open and transparent way.