Jan Brewer caught the Arizona political scene by surprise this week when she fired the man who has been cleaning up the corruption in her administration for the last two years.
Brian McNeil was appointed by the governor to serve as Director of the Arizona Department of Administration (ADOA) on November 1, 2012. He had a long history of service in the state government, including previous stints in both Brewer’s and Fife Symington’s administrations. His agency, ADOA, is responsible for providing support services to the state government and includes the Department of Human Resources.
The corruption investigator had integrity and high standards.
Director McNeil is a military man who is known to hold employees to high standards. He spent over twenty years in the military, including two tours of duty in Iraq, and is still a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve. Seems like a great fit for a conservative state government, right? Well, that depends on whether you’re talking about what conservatives say or what they do.
When Brewer appointed McNeil as Director of ADOA, she said:
I’ve known Brian since my days in the State Senate. He has always been a devoted and honorable public servant, and very few can match his knowledge of Arizona policy and government operations.
Brian played a critical role in helping guide my administration through some of our State’s most difficult times. I’m thankful for his willingness to now rejoin us in leading ADOA into the future.
Was he a little too willing? The new director didn’t hesitate to roll up his sleeves and start cleaning up the administration. But now he’s been summarily dismissed and no one is talking about why. The excuse is that it is a “personnel matter”. McNeil knows all about ‘personnel matters’, having spent the last two years exposing the shady behavior of some of the political appointees in Brewer’s administration.
The subjects of investigation were Brewer political appointees.
Last year, McNeil investigated Jesse Hernandez, a political appointee with no relevant experience who Brewer put into the position of Chairman of the Board of Executive Clemency — to the tune of $84,000 a year. The investigation resulted in nine allegations against him. The most egregious was offering his equally unqualified co-worker/girlfriend a raise of $21,000 a year. Hernandez resigned on the heels of the investigation.
The next target surfaced early this year. State Parks Director Bryan Martyn, also a political appointee, hired his three sons (the makings of a t.v. show) to work for him. Martyn himself had no parks experience. His only qualification was his friendship with Brewer. He got only a slap on the hand for his nepotism — a two-week suspension that cost him over $5200 in lost pay. That’s right, he was — and still is — making over $135,000 a year. The person who did get booted was a Human Resources Officer, DiAnne Baune, personnel adviser to the parks department.
Most recently, McNeil forced an administrator of the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System (PSPRS) to, uh … retire. Administrator Jim Hacking was found to have given secret raises to his staff without Department of Administration approval — raises of up to 27%. A pretty sweet deal for his staff.
And, as it turns out, a pretty sweet deal for Hacking. After all, the PSPRS board members are all Brewer appointees. Plus, the chairman, Brian Tobin, is the brother of Arizona House Speaker Andy Tobin. So Hacking’s ‘punishment’ was — drum roll, please — a severance package of over $107,000, and an annual pension of $86,704 at taxpayer expense of course.
Too devoted and honorable?
Cronyism pays, but only Brian McNeil seemed to miss the memo about playing along. This ‘devoted and honorable public servant’ is now on the outs, presumably for being too honorable and devoted.
But come on now, after nearly 30 years of service with Republican administrations, didn’t the guy know the devil for whom he was working? If he didn’t before, he surely must know now.
I guess he missed the memo where he was told to take 51 weeks of vacation like the rest of her appointees.
Looks like he missed a lot of memos.
…*R*epugnance *R*evealed!…
This is the kind of information the media should put out every day,
This is the kind of information you will never see on the media as a vast majority is owned by Conservatives.
Looking forward for when this witch goes down.
I live in Tucson. The living Racist Lobotomy that ‘governs” this state is a horror to the rational ones that reside here.
I shall borrow that description. Hilarious.
You have made my day. 🙂
She is really a lich.
I feel for you.
Maybe his investigation into corruption was getting a little too close to the Governor’s mansion?????
Hope it comes out, in the end!
Hmm she fired him i bet just before he would point his finger at HER own corruption i bet.
Makes you wonder, huh?
Nothing screams scandal like a corrupt administration firing the people who are bringing charges against those corrupting and bankrupting government.
May as many eyes as possible be watching!
They are masters of distraction. He set himself up as soon as he uncovered corruption. I have seen this scene played out by another one of her corrupt appointees. She retains people JUST like her. All others will be slaughtered in the media.
The interesting developments continue to unfold. Shortly after Brewer fired McNeil, the Republic ran a story that a charge of sexual and racial discrimination had been filed against him and that was the reason he was let go. Why is a man fired immediately after a charge is filed, with no investigation?
And then, rather quietly, the news was released that the pension fund mentioned in the article, PSPRS, is in trouble for outrageous legal bills from outside counsel that was used instead of using the attorney general’s office. It all stinks to high heaven.
surely there is room for him in dem. party
When I start getting depressed because I have to rely on SS disability payments, and it makes me feel like a mooch, stories like these, where pols reap huge financial windfalls via cronyism and corruption, it makes me feel slightly less like a undeserving slug.
It’s not much and I’ll never feel like I deserve it, but I’ll take what little comforts I can get. heh
A compassionate society makes sure the needs of everyone are taken care of. You (and everyone) deserve that because you are a human being and a member of a larger community. Hold your place with pride — and hold your head high! 🙂
If you worked enough to qualify for SS, then the money is rightfully yours. You put into the system and are not mooching!
I worked for a rural county for a while. This county has 2 major employers, the county government and a local hospital. These two organizations MAYBE employ 2000-maybe more maybe less. After that, local jobs are pretty scarce.
One day, the local sherrif, who I knew from his wanderings around the county courthhouse, made a major bust of a family of moonshiners. Now, I knew for a fact, there were MANY more ‘shiners’ up in “them thar hills”, not to mention all of the marijuana grown in the area, so I asked him, why he didn’t go clean out the whole mess of them?
He said with a wry smile “Son, if I arrested TOO many moonshiners and pot growers, we wouldn’t have enough people to pay the county taxes”.
She got to him before he could uncover other appointees unethical and possibly illegal behavior. Stuff goes up there and gets swept right under the rug…Like, why is an appointee and director of a state agency using appropriated funds to travel around the world to try to get money funneled to his organization called USGIN with himself as Chairman and CEO. This non-profit was set up for personal gain and to bypass rules and regulations set in place to keep government agencies from applying for certain grants. USGIN was a federal grant program awarded to the Arizona Geological Survey. Now it appears that Director Allison is appropriating the work of the Agency as his own work product and for his own future benefit. This is the tip of that iceberg…. He need exposure and so does she.Say anything…get fired… I know.
Wouldn’t he be out of work anyway since she is leaving office? Oh she paid all those large Christmas bonuses. Maybe she didn’t want that investigated. Who knows!