New Ethics Complaint Filed Against Gov. Palin – Per Diem for Personal Gain
6 07 2009Wasilla resident Zane Henning will be filing an ethics complaint today against soon-to-be-ex-governor Sarah Palin for continuing to collect per diem expenses from the State of Alaska while still living in, and commuting from her own home.
One of the things that will still be getting some attention from government watchdogs, and legislators are possible changes that need to be addressed in the Ethics Act and/or State Law. Sarah Palin may be heading for the exit doors, but Alaska residents will have many governors to come. Like George Bush, who left the door wide open for potential abuses by his successors, we find ourselves looking for the holes in the system that will need to be plugged.
Now, back to Palin’s parting gift.
“I am charging that the Governor has given herself a raise for personal gain by using the per diem process, which is in direct conflict with Section 39.52.120. (a) of the Alaska Executive Ethics Act,” Henning said. “The State of Alaska provides housing in the state’s capital of Juneau for our Governor, so there should be no extra expense if she desires to stay in her own home. More than a thousand state employees commute from the Mat-Su Valley daily and none of them get to pocket free money.”
The reasons why I am filing this complaint are as follows:
· State travel regulations specify per diem can’t be claimed when travel is less than 50 miles from a state employee’s workplace. Palin works out of her Anchorage office in the Atwood Building which is a scant 45- mile commute from her Wasilla home.
· Palin is exempt from personnel and travel rules which means she does NOT HAVE to collect any per diem ever when working out of her Anchorage office.
· And most importantly, State Statute 39.20.010 distinctly stipulates that the governor’s salary is $125,000. Period. By pocketing this free money, Palin violates Alaska law by giving herself a raise that totals to thousands of dollars.
Attached documents provide proof that Governor Sarah Palin continues to collect per diem as of May 2009.
“The Governor is quitting her job and now more than ever the State of Alaska along with its residents need to be reimbursed for the per diem charges including interest and a fine. Governor Palin is setting precedent for future governors. My hope was that one of our lemming legislators would take a stand and hold Palin accountable for this act, but since that has not happened, it is up to private citizens, like myself, to hold our Governor accountable”, stated Henning.
The ethics complaint and supporting document is below.
palin-per-deim-complaint-7-6-09
*********WARNING TO JUNEAU RESIDENTS*******
>BLEEP! BLEEP! BLEEP!<
Included in the supporting documents is an email from the governor written to Meg Stapleton back in March of 2007 which includes the following:
“Fyi he’s really going to hit the roof when he gets the message that come end of legislative session i’m joining YOU, and the majority of the people of AK by conducting the state’s business where the people are – where I can access them, and they can access me. (I’ll talk to you and Sharon about this outside of email.) our gasline team, our commerce and revenue people, and so many others, are obviously needed in Anchorage once this session ends…
We’re going to have to fundamentally change some perceptions of WHERE the admin needs to conduct its business in order to stay connected w/ the world outside of Juneau.”
July 6th, 2009 at 8:14 PM
oh, and I’m fine for chatroom in the evening Eastern Time!
Send me a PM via the forum to let me know when any of you are there and ready to chat.
Off to bed with me now…
July 6th, 2009 at 8:15 PM
i hate flipping between threads. where is everyone going to camp out and i will stay there too. the discussions are too similar…
July 6th, 2009 at 8:16 PM
Oh! I’m going to have to read it properly – I only skimmed (but saved to puter lol)
about that complaint of ours, at one time, I had the complete Missouri law (real estate law, that is) saved to the computer – that was about 5 computers ago, so you have an idea of how puny it was.
One thing that helped me enormously was that I’d taken a – an “tough” English class – can’t remember the name of the course, but “arguing on paper” was the gist of it. Goofy prof – LOVED the class. Thank heavens I took that class. It was logic, ad hominem, straw man, slippery slope etc. Fun, too.
July 6th, 2009 at 8:20 PM
g’nite justafarmer!
July 6th, 2009 at 8:21 PM
JHop – how ’bout the newest thread?
July 6th, 2009 at 8:21 PM
AKM, sorry for the OT there for a bit!
July 6th, 2009 at 8:22 PM
AKM – me too (what justafarmer said)
July 6th, 2009 at 8:27 PM
JHop, most of us will be around for the liveblogging Anchorage Assembly meeting thread on Tuesday night…I think the good parts start around 11 pm our time (that’s the public testimony and liveblogging) and it can go to 2 or 3 am our time and then the parsing of testimony can go to 4 am our time…
Seriously, though, I’m thinking a lot of this ethics discussion should be a thread over in the forum. Easy to keep track of and everything in one place. If someone doesn’t open a thread in the forum tonight, I’ll do it sometime tomorrow (but I hope some mudpup doesn’t wait on me because I have a really full day on Tuesday).
July 6th, 2009 at 8:27 PM
justafaremer is now zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
July 6th, 2009 at 8:28 PM
see??? I couldn’t even spell my name correctly in the last post…
zzzzzzzz
July 6th, 2009 at 8:36 PM
i am down for the chatroom tomorrow night. i actually have to pull another all nighter, so it works for me. i am a late person by nature anyway.
i am officially moving to “the voice speaks” thread. just for consistency. i hope we can all congregate!
July 6th, 2009 at 9:00 PM
<>
My name is, like, so outdated, now!
July 6th, 2009 at 9:30 PM
For JHop @ #97 July 6th, 2009 at 5:49 PM
I absolutely agree with you – that’s why I have to vent then go back and write the facts. Your advice is correct. I do regulatory work investigating complaints so I have to be very careful what I publish to not have my feelings/opinions injected, even if the regulation is imprecise or inadvertently not what was intended.
I am mad at the governor for taking the per diem, when a state employee, even if she has traveled all day, more than eight hours, gets home before the dinner bell, cannot have the full day’s per diem. I kid you not. But Her Quittership is allowed per diem for attending a personal event (daughter’s graduation)? A state employee is not allowed travel prepayment of transportation, etc., if personal activities are included in the trip; pay up front out of personal funds, then hope to be reimbursed when you get home. If the state employee has to travel all day on an airplane, per diem is not paid if you don’t do any state work while traveling. Like email or memos, I guess.
And bottom line, I wouldn’t begrudge Gov Buttercup the money if it actually appeared she had accomplished work. The fact is, recently pointed out by Halcro and others, the Governor’s calendar is mostly bare. She doesn’t meet with advisors, commissioners, legislators – anything that is actual work, not tititular facebrag.
July 6th, 2009 at 9:43 PM
JHop,
Here is the link to the Todd Palin’s page on the State of Alaska website. When I first looked for it this morning, thinking that it would be tastefully removed by now, it appeared to be missing but noooooooo, it was just buried a few links down.
http://www.gov.state.ak.us/bio_firstgent.php
The links on the bottom of the page include the Tesoro Irondog.
July 6th, 2009 at 9:56 PM
People really need to get a life.
July 6th, 2009 at 10:19 PM
As a resident of Anchorage and someone who has voted at least a couple of times for moving the state capitol CLOSER and MORE ACCESSIBLE to the majority of Alaskans, I have NO problem with her assessment of where business is conducted and rightly should be conducted in Alaska. (Whut up SouthCentral?!? Big ups SC! Woot!) The capitol move is way past overdue. Seriously. It wasn’t her idea however… no original ideas are.
-Laz
July 7th, 2009 at 1:04 AM
I’m sorry to keep referring back to this, but remember AKM’s post about 1 week ago re: AKReport? AKReport said possible 3 more ethics complaints to be filed and “long simmering IRS/embezzlement” issues/problems. I don’t know how to look up past posts.
*iceberg*
July 7th, 2009 at 1:09 AM
This is what I’m referring to:
http://www.themudflats.net/2009/06/24/breaking-news-three-more-ethics-complaints-against-palin-and-then-some/
July 7th, 2009 at 4:40 AM
Having thought about the per diems for some time, I am still of the opinion that there is a two-prong violation of law in the simple act of staying home and collecting, and not reporting those per diems on tax returns.
July 7th, 2009 at 8:30 AM
The first thing that needs to be changed is who hears ethics complaints against a governor. Having the people the governor appoints and can fire at will is the biggest conflict-of-interest I have ever seen.
I also wonder about the $500,000 in legal bills. What is it for? When all Sarah has to do is call the people on the Personnel board and tell them to quash the complaint, that doesn’t take a lot of lawyer time.