state of wis. doj report to secretary john a. scocos, wis. dept. of veterans affairs (wdva)
DESCRIPTION
A November 12, 2009, 23-page letter investigation report from the State of Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) to the State of Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs (WDVA). The DOJ investigation of certain actions was requested by WDVA Acting Secretary Ken Black (Kenneth B. Black), who was serving at the agency's helm as Secretary John A. Scocos was deployed on military duty in Iraq. WNo criminal wrongdoing was found by the Wis. DOJ. However, the report is filled with details of mismanagement and miscommunication that included Acting Secretary Ken Black, whose statements to DOJ investigators were contradicted by numerous other career staff at the agency.In a bizarre twist, a few of the findings of this report were used in a November 24, 2009 meeting of the Wisconsin Board of Veterans Affairs, which oversees the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs (and whose Secretary serves at its pleasure) to fire Sec. Scocos and replace him with Ken Black, despite Black's direct involvement at the time as the head of the agency and therefore personally responsible for the miscommunications and mismanagement that took place on his watch and are covered in detail in this report.TRANSCRIPT
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Whoever drafted the WDVA letter clearly lacks basic knowledge of Wis. state government.
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This is a letter investigative report, with comments on these findings, which could be summarized as mismanagement, miscommunication and much ado about nothing.
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It is notable that the actions and events covered by this investigation took place while then-Secretary John A. Scocos was deployed to Iraq, and his deputy, Kenneth B. Black, was at the helm and serving as the agency's Acting Secretary.
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And again...
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This is the most important point of the letter.
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This shows a seriously flawed assumption on the basis of those at WDVA requesting a DOJ investigation, one that should, and clearly could have been determined beforehand.
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Why couldn't WDVA officials determine this was resolved before publicly asking for DOJ's investigative involvement?
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Duly noted.
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...but has no oversight responsibilities over the agency's budget expenditures. Is the status quo best management practice?
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Why was Black the only WDVA official accompanied by WDVA legal counsel?!
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Stewart is not credible here, having repeatedly advised WDVA officials including Black that these violations were criminal and constituted malfeasance in office. No wonder Black was silent here.
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Again it is noted that the status quo OPPB has no apparent budget expenditure oversight responsibilities.
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Is she trained for this role?
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Perhaps not often, but at least 1-2 times per biennium...
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This is clearly not accurate as shown later in this letter, demonstrating either Black's incompetence or lying.
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Why didn't Black, Stewart, Abrahamsen ask Kloster about his recollections?
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Such high-level communications would have had a paper trail both on outgoing and return correspondence, almost certainly maintained in WDVA's OOS, and WVH-K.
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Given the preponderance of evidence in discussed in this letter, Black is either seriously incompetent or, alternately, lying (for unclear motive(s)).
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Why not? Is this competent, professional, accountable, best practice?
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All of this involvement and activity would preclude most rational people from assuming some sort of wrongdoing motive -- but Black and Stewart assumed otherwise.
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Black not only knew, he have the order. Then denies knowing anything about it... Again, utter incompetence, or lying without a clear motive.
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Sounds like a lot of miscommunication and assumptions on all sides, but hardly anything criminal or worthy of pursuit for wrongdoing.
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Recognizing that this is not the statutory language, this language clearly states a "congract" and not "grant" or "donation" or other disbursement.
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This language does not specify the form of disbursement.
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Agreed -- this is poor judgement, and could lead a reasonable person to conclude that this is a violation of the applicable statutes. However, DOJ experts found that it was not.
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None of this sounds anything like the nurse stipend program described in WDVA's budget request or as has been briefed by WVH-K at Board meetings...
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Since OPPB and the budget director, Abrahamsen have acknowledged they have no responsibility for oversight of budget expenditures, only WVH-K's explanation should be accepted in this "dispute".
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Since budget expenditures are not his responsibility, on what basis independent of WVH-K's explanation would Abrahamsen know which expenditures were the cause?
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This makes Abrahamsen sound incompetent and at least partly responsible for what sounds like a very hostile and cutthroat work environment.
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Agreed, it would have been easy (and commonplace) to justify.
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Why has WVH-King had a "ten-year history" of needing surplus funds? Who -- and at what level -- most appropriately should have fixed this?
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This may be Abrahamsen's practice, but it is legal?
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Though not common or necessarily desirable, there are regularly agency requests to Joint Finance in budget years. Should this decision to not proceed have been made by Abrahamsen?
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Apparently this is a common practice in the agency, acknowledged at all levels.
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This is non-specific and unclear.
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More assumptions and buck shifting.
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...yet earlier, Abrahamsen told investigators that he advised Black on his own assumptions about why WVH-K's budget was exceeded.
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Stead wrongly assumed that the C.O., through OPPB, monitored King's budget expenditures.
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...."ACCOUNTING AND BUDGETING PROCESS AND PROCEDURE flaws." Note no mention of criminal or civil statutory violations, because there weren't any, and a reasonable person would not have assumed otherwise after even the most cursory internal review.
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This assumption is despite the clear evidence of the loss of a firetruck, citations requiring correction, and other unprojectable one-time events.
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...different, presumably created by OPPB. However, OPPB's "contract" is quite different from WVH-K's "grant" in its proposal and in its factual expenditure.
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The funds were used as contemplated, and as enacted in the budget. The only issue here is a breakdown in communication that resulted in OPPB/Central Office being out of touch with WVH-King's intentions and actual expenditures.
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This can be interpreted as a sharp criticism of WDVA's legal counsel.
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This says that Black either lied, or doesn't have a clue what the subject matter is that he's talking about and therefore is utterly incompetent. Other, darker motives with broader power implications are also possible if Black is lying rather than just clueless. Clueless appears more likely than lying, given the number of witnesses to Black's personal involvement.
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This suggests Abrahamsen's total incompetence. His threats of criminality could only have had a chilling effect on further communications between his office and WVH-King.
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At the Commandant level, Crowley should clearly have known this requirement.
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Black should have had Abrahamsen and OPPB involved before he made this approval, which would have brought him into the loop. It seems surprising that an Acting Secretary would make such a major decision without involvement of his budget director.
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What kind of state government agency budget director role is "focusing just on salaries"?!
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This is a very serious, all-encompassing charge about this situation (which took place while Scocos was away and Black was Acting Secretary)
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This appears to be why DOJ did not proceed with charges against Crowley and Stead at a minimum, with the likely inclusion of at least Abrahamsen and Black.
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--not the least because sufficent defense (unappropriated excess funds) exists that makes prosecution unwinnable.
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The fact that DOJ doesn't see Black's contrary statements to be intentional implies the investigators determined he is simply incompetent.
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...but should make a difference to those overseeing the staff responsible.
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...at least in part because of the unjustified and inappropriate use of the language "contract" by OPPB
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This is a powerful statement.
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Very sharp words that suggest this whole inquiry was a waste of time from an investigatory standpoint (though not from a management standpoint).
