Yesterday I posted on the hiring of a former state trooper as head of North Dakota’s Workforce Safety and Insurance (WSI) entity – the state’s sole work comp agency. For those unfamiliar with ND, they are one of the few states where the state is the exclusive provider of workers comp insurance – they, and Ohio and Washington, are ‘monopolistic’ states.
A bit of googling brought up a bit more information about the new boss – Bryan Klipfel. His background is law enforcement, he does not appear to have any comp experience, and was actively involved in the investigation of the former head of the agency, Charles Blunt. Blunt was terminated after an investigation into an alleged theft of state funds. Blunt was subsequently convicted by a jury of one felony charge of misappropriating state funds.
A quick google of the Blunt case raises more questions than answers. After watching the fiasco at the Ohio fund brought on by a few criminals in the executive suite, I was prepared for another orgy of self-dealing at the public trough.
Apparently not. In fact there aren’t any charges that Blunt took money himself, but rather authorized sick leave for an executive that may not have been ill, and, according to a news report, used somewhere around $26,000 of “WSI funds to pay for employee meals and drinks and buying illegal gifts and trinkets for staff…”.
Ok, so Blunt made a few bad decisions and/or didn’t follow all the rules by the book. But a felony conviction for a sick leave authorization and some apparently inexpensive ‘gifts’?
Boy those Dakotans are brutal. But even if they are, I can’t imagine Blunt was the only exec in the entire history of WSI to run afoul of the employee handbook. So, why the big expensive investigation?
I’m really curious. The investigator who has no experience in work comp and no P and L experience (never ran a business) is the head of a big comp insurer after helping convict the former occupant of his new office of using state funds to pay for meals, sick leave, and gifts?
Insight, analysis & opinion from Joe Paduda