November 2, 2010
Tuntland
established that email was the main form of communication at WSI, and that
permission was needed from Mark Armstrong to send email to all employees.
Long
testified that he initially agreed with Blunt regarding the 4% pay increase, as
they both thought WSI was exempt. It
turned out WSI had to specifically be exempted, but for some reason was not on
that issue.
There was
the issue of an ongoing state audit.
Long said Halvorson and Blunt immediately opposed the state audit
because of the scope: it looked at morale and job satisfaction. That created animosity between WSI and the
State auditor. Long's was concerned as
he felt you don't make enemies at the auditor's office.
Long
testified that Blunt ordered him to stonewall the audit. "If they want 2 pages, you give them 20;
if they want 100 pages give them 1000.
Bury them in information."
Long says he told Blunt that would be seen as obstruction. At that point Blunt became volatile. Long said he did follow Blunt's instructions,
saying that using Marine terminology, "It wasn't worth dying over."
He said
that he was always candid and honest with the auditors, but that he used his
chain of command: he would report first to Blunt or Bjornson.
Moving on
to the topic of Dave Spencer: Spencer
was a friend of Blunt's that Blunt had recruited from Ohio.
But Dave exhibited a lot of anger at WSI, and Blunt revealed to Long
that he'd had to put Spencer on an anger management program when in Ohio. Long said Blunt was committed to Spencer, as
he was to all his execs, and assigned an executive personal coach to work out
the issues with Spencer. But eventually,
it was clear that Spencer had to be let go.
Long said
that Blunt was concerned about his friend's finances, as he had a mortgage in Ohio as well as North
Dakota. Long
testified that Spencer had received relocation expenses to move to N.D. But he said Blunt tried to solve his friend's
dilemma by telling him to call in sick day after day to gain sick pay; he had a month of sick pay, and in Long's
view it was like severance pay. Long
says he told the Director of HR Billie Peltz (whom he supervised) they couldn't
do that, they would be stepping on the Family Medical Leave Act, and besides,
"It was a lie, he wasn't
sick." He said he and Billie both
told Blunt the agency was in an audit, they couldn't do that, and that Bille
made notes about it, but Blunt allowed
Spencer to not report to work and collect sick pay. Long said he kept nagging Blunt to do the right
thing and fire Spencer.
He said
the State Auditor called a group into the room and asked the whereabouts of
Spencer. No one knew what to say. He said he didn;t feel obligated to tell the
auditor's office about Spencer.
Spencer
eventually resigned and started a private business writing grants for WSI
funding. He said WSI has a bucket of
money for grants for various business needs, and Spencer had formerly been in
the department which approved the grants, so it "was a natural in."
He said
Halvorson took over Spencer's job in the interim, and that Blunt told Halvorson
to give WSI information from Spencer's computer to Spencer. The information included contact list, voice
mails, and emails.
Long
thought it seemed unethical given the large sums of money involved. Long discussed the impropriety with Blunt,
saying it was policy not to release private information like social security
numbers, etc., but he siad Blunt told him he owed Spencer a debt of gratitude
and wanted to see him get on his feet.
Long said he discussed the issue with Bjornson as well, that he always
discussed matters with Bjornson.
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