Part III: My Days at the Department of Insurance; The Present Left By Governor Kernan and How Governor Daniels' Office Let Down This Republican

Atterholt did not come into the office until that afternoon, that fateful day of September 17, 2007. Within probably a ½ hour of coming in and reading my memo, he dispatched the IDOI’s general counsel to my office. The attorney told me that they needed me up stairs for a pre-deprivation meeting but that the meeting was merely a formality. The decision had already been made to fire me if I would not resign. He told me they could fire me for any reason they wanted, including wearing the wrong color shirt that day. It was obvious to me that the general counsel did not know state rules governing the termination of non-merit employees with more than 6 months of service, did not understand how to conduct a pre-deprivation meeting (you don’t start out by announcing that the meeting is irrelevant because the decision has already been made), did not know the state whistleblowing law, and did not know that, from a legal standpoint, a forced resignation was no different from a termination.

During the meeting, attending by Jim, Shirley, the aforementioned attorney and someone from state personnel, I asked for an adjournment to talk to the state personnel person at the meeting to see if the investigation I had arranged for would continue in my absence. For someone brand new to state personnel, she surprisingly had an immediate response: my request for an investigation could no longer be acted upon because I would no longer be a state employee. When I returned to the meeting I asked them to identify exactly why I was being terminated. The only response was that I was “out of line.”

I went from being a highly-lauded state employee to being escorted back to my office where my every move was watched. Upon return, I found out my computer had been seized during the meeting. (So much for the idea that a pre-deprivation meeting is where the termination decision is supposed to be made.) Then I was escorted out of the building.

Up until the pre-deprivation meeting, my response to the eternal IDOI mystery was that Jim Atterholt was simply too “nice” to do anything about Shirley. What I saw at the pre-deprivation meeting and have witnessed since leaves me with no doubt that conclusion was wrong. The Commissioner is genuinely terrified, for whatever reason, of crossing Shirley. The memo I wrote not only memorialized state personnel and legal violations, but also acted to “out” Atterholt on the numerous negative things he had said about Shirley. Now he is doing all he can to deny previous statemetns and positions he has taken regarding Shirley, even if that now requires that he perjure himself.

I believe I mentioned at the start of this tale that Shirley is a Democrat appointee of former Governor Kernan. She is, in fact, a liberal Democrat, a big fan of Michael Moore, and who as I was leaving in 2007, was trying to arrange the screening of the movie “Sicko” for employees in her unit. Jim Atterholt, a conservative Republican, is a direct appointee of Governor Daniels. I, who am also a conservative Republican, had my appointment was approved by Governor Daniels. I always believed that if the Governor’s people would simply take the time to look at what I was saying, they would find out that 90% of the problems at the Department of Insurance is being caused by a liberal Democrat upper-level supervisor appointed by Governor Kernan specifically to cause problems at the Department. But the Governor’s Office would not even acknowledge my claims, much less investigate them. After months, I was left with no choice but to sue.

I do not personally blame the Governor. Hopefully Governor Daniels has more important things to personally worry about than what happened tome. But at some point though his people need to actually acknowledge and investigate matters at the agencies when it is brought to their attention. Instead it was only months after being ignored and left with no choice but to file a lawsuit, that someone from the Governor’s Office finally took an interest, if only to suggest the lawsuit showed disloyalty to the Governor. Ahem.

The termination cost me not only a job I loved and was good at, but it left me unable to complete the 10 year service I needed to qualify for my state pension, a benefit that is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. While I am extremely confident of winning my case, back pay and a reinstatement order, it bothers me considerably that this battle has to be fought at all. If only someone from the Governor’s Office would have conducted an investigationi, the matter could have quickly been resolved with a simple directive from the Governor's office. Instead we are left with no choice but to spend a couple years litigating a case at the conclusion of which a court will likely order Commissioner Atterholt to do the very thing that Governor Daniels could have ordered Commissioner Atterholt from the outset, without the need for litigation. Oh, well. Life is a journey. I just wish I did not have to climb the hills during that journey.

***THE END***

Link to Part I
Link to Part II