Oversight Chair Demands Answers about Branstad Administration ‘Hush Money’

A senator who chairs the Iowa Legislature’s Oversight Committee said she’s not satisfied with explanations for nearly $300,000 in secret settlements made by Gov. Terry Branstad’s administration with six former state workers.

The Des Moines Register published an investigative report Sunday making public the settlements, paid mostly to employees who said they lost their jobs because of Republican cronyism. In exchange for the so-called hush money, the employees signed unenforceable confidentiality agreements attempting to silence the about the settlements.

Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds said at a weekly news conference with reporters that neither she nor Branstad were aware of the secret settlements, the Register reported.

Iowa Democratic Party Executive Director Troy Price, an aide to former Gov. Chet Culver during his administration, said it’s doubtful that a payout of that magnitude could be made without the governor’s office knowing about it.

“Having worked in the governor’s office, I think it’s completely unbelievable that a state agency would pay tens of thousands of dollars and not let the governor’s office know,” Price told the Register..

The legislative Oversight Committee chair, Sen. Janet Petersen, D-Des Moines, told the Register Tuesday that she’s launching her own investigation and has requested records and copies of settlement agreements made by the Branstad administration with former employees since he took office in January 2011.

“Spending almost $300,000 provided by taxpayers to pay former state employees to keep silent is outrageous,” Petersen said. “How did this happen?  What information was intended to be concealed by these payments?”

The settlements went undetected until the Register launched its investigation after being tipped off by some of the former employees who signed the agreements. The typical process that in which settlements become public – the Iowa Appeal Board – apparently was sidestepped and the payments were shuffled through various state agencies, the Register said.

Petersen wrote in her records request that she’s “deeply concerned” about the newspaper’s findings that taxpayer dollars were used as “hush money.”