Everything that’s not nailed down (Pt. 2)

Niki Kelly has an article in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette with more on the exploits of Richard Rhoad, the FSSA, and the cronyism of the Daniels administration.

A small detail that made me chuckle. Rhoad signed a contract as an independent contractor to perform the same duties as he had already been performing as a state employee — getting an $80,000 per year pay raise in the process — on the last day of his state employment. So, he was still an employee when he signed on as a private contractor. The date of his signature and the last day of his employment: Friday, January 13, 2006. Maybe he should have been more superstitious.

What I wonder most about at the moment is all the money Rhoad was getting as a state employee for lodging in Indianapolis and traveling to work. The official line at the moment seems to be “it was o.k. for awhile, but then it wasn’t.” My guess is that it was never o.k., and there should be some effort in place to get the money back from Rhoad.

Some good passages:

“(Rhoad) clearly is not the right man for the job if we have to reward him for coming here,” Parker said. “Indianapolis is the state capital. The job is here. He must make a sacrifice to do the job.”

Gov. Mitch Daniels declined to comment Wednesday.

Rhoad has not returned numerous messages left at his work and home the past three days.

. . .

“The governor is certainly running Indiana government like a corporate executive would run a corporation,” said David Patterson, spokesman for AFSCME Council 62. “Executive pay goes up while hard-working employees get the shaft.”

The AFSCME union has fought against privatization efforts within the Family and Social Services Administration.

“Hard-working employees live and work under a set of rules. Apparently the same rules don’t apply to Gov. Daniels and his political cronies,” he said.

And remember, this was the *more ethical* contract with Rhoad. An earlier one signed off on by Rhoad and Mitch Roob but not by a couple of the other necessary parties would have paid Rhoad $2 million for 2 years of work.

Update Niki Kelly has another article in which Gov. Daniels defends his administration by arguing that the ends justify the means. Oh, and it’s Joe Kernan’s fault.

Ken Kusmer, writing for the Associated Press, is sticking with the story as well.

Disclosure this week of both contracts [the $1 million per year 2 year contract which was never fully executed and the subsequent $180,000/year contract, up from $100k/year] has drawn criticism from outside the Daniels administration as a sign of the cronyism and the wasteful spending that Daniels had campaigned against while running for governor two years ago.

Gee, ya think?

Meanwhile Taking Down Words has some advice:

Psssssst. Hey, guys. Cancel the contract. Cancel it now. Say you made a mistake. Renegotiate. Let Rhoad go, if need be. But this issue is starting to really and truly make the administration look like out-of-touch executive goofballs who honestly don’t understand why paying a public servant $180,000 a year might not go over well with the average, hard-working Hoosier.

Aww c’mon TDW, you know that pay cuts and firings are only for the little people. Rhoad is a crony. Cronies get taken care of.