Settled — 05/27/08

Sat, May 17 2008

— For the second time since Gov. Steve Beshear assumed office in December, a state worker has received a large cash settlement in connection with a lawsuit filed against the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. While Beshear has praised the latest settlement as vindication for a state employee who was mistreated during the administration of former Gov. Ernie Fletcher, one suspects the suit would have never been settled if Fletcher had won re-election in November.
Indeed, former Transportation Secretary William Nighbert — who was named in both lawsuits settled by the Beshear administration — has been outspoken in his criticism of the settlements.
“I was personally willing to go there and testify to what had happened,” Nighbert said of the allegations in the whistleblower lawsuit field by Sarah Missy McCray. “I would have been surprised if she would have gotten anything at all when the whole story was told.”
But the settlement assures that the whole story will never be told. Instead, the state has agreed to pay McCray $500,000 and transfer her to the state Personnel Cabinet.
In December, the state agreed to pay former former Chief Deputy Inspector General Michael Duncan $369,000 to settle his suit against Nighbert and the Transportation Cabinet. Duncan was one of several state employees on a so-called “hit list” of workers targeted by the Fletcher administration. Duncan claimed that he was fired because he supported Democrat Ben Chandler in the 2003 governor’s race.
However, because of the settlement, evidence in that case will never be presented in a court of law. In fact, no case involving the hiring scandal that assured Ernie Fletcher would serve only one term has ever gone to trial. Thus, the public is in the dark about the validity of the many charges and countercharges made during the investigation by the office of former Attorney General Greg Stumbo.
No doubt McCray and Duncan are elated with their huge settlements in their cases, and Governor Beshear says he is convinced they are justified. In fact, he believes the two defendants could have received much more had the cases gone to trial.
But we will never know, will we? It now has become abundantly clear that ordinary citizens will never get to see or hear an objective presentation of the evidence supporting the serious charges that led to the defeat of Ernie Fletcher. We find that most disappointing.