By Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — The Kansas Senate put a seal of approval Wednesday on legislation creating a cash award incentive for state employees to step forward with previously undisclosed information about alleged waste, abuse or fraud in state-administered programs.
The bill forwarded to the Kansas House on a vote of 33-6 would entitle a whistleblower to 10% of the state’s cost savings resulting from a report of malfeasance. Under Senate Bill 450, an employee’s reward would be calculated after deductions for the cost of a state investigation to confirm the allegations and for expenditures made in collecting misused funds.
The Kansas Department of Administration would make determinations about savings in consultation with the attorney general or office of inspector general.
“It’s a good program. I think it’s a good plan,” said Sen. Michael Murphy, a Sylvia Republican who introduced the bill. “It gives state employees some ownership in their jobs, gives them some pride in what they’re doing.”
The bill was tentatively approved in the GOP-led Senate, but would need to survive a final Senate vote, consideration by the Kansas House and review by Gov. Laura kelly.
A pair of Senate Democrats, Marci Francisco of Lawrence and Cindy Holscher of Overland Park, raised questions about details of the legislation.
“I’m not seeing a definition of abuse of funds in the bill,” Francisco said. “I understand fraud. I understand waste. I think it’s less clear what abuse of funds would mean. I just find that awkward.”
Holscher, a Democratic candidate for governor, said the reward bill could lead to reports rooted in party politics. The program would be vulnerable to abuse by state workers intent on embarrassing legislators or other elected officials, she said.
“This can be a partisan place at times because of the nature of our business,” she said. “We’re going to be incentivizing people to bring forward complaints and issues. In essence, this bill has the propensity to turn state employees into bounty hunters. That is a huge issue. There are no safeguards in place.”
Murphy, the lone proponent of the bill during a hearing with the Senate Government Efficiency Committee, said anyone intentionally leveling bogus allegations of financial abuse, fraud or waste could be charged with the crime of making a false claim.
He said the program was modeled after an efficiency initiative operated by his former employer United Airlines. One of his colleagues pocketed $1.9 million after identifying an efficiency that saved the airline $19 million annually.
“Programs such as this are common in the corporate world, and they make sense because keeping overhead lower helps the bottom line for corporate profitability,” he told senators. “Perhaps it is even more important here as rather than profitability we are tasked with being good stewards of taxpayer dollars, and thus keeping taxes and spending lower.”
Under the bill, awards would be made to state employees who were the original source of cost-saving information. An award couldn’t be made if the attorney general or inspector general had independent knowledge of the wayward activity or if those offices had an open investigation of a person or entity named in an employee’s report.
The bill would deny whistleblower awards to an employee who was party to civil or criminal proceedings in which the allegations were disclosed, or if the information was revealed through a news report or a legislative or administrative report, investigation, hearing or audit. In addition, a state employee working as an auditor or investigator couldn’t rely on job-derived information to claim a financial award.
Meanwhile, Sen. Elaine Bowers, R-Concordia, unanimously approved Senate Bill 362. It would require six statewide elected officials — governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, state treasurer and state insurance commissioner — to keep records of all travel locations and expenses paid or reimbursed by the state.
The bill, which was introduced at the request of Sen. Tim Shallenburger, R-Baxter Springs, would mandate these annual reports be made available to the public under the Kansas Open Records Act.
The Senate also unanimously endorsed Senate Bill 451, which would allow changes to the campaign finance reports submitted by a political candidate. The goal would be to reduce the breadth of information in those filings regarding subcontractors for advertising, public relations and consulting.
Sen. Mike Thompson, R-Shawnee, said existing state law mandated candidates document spending for products and services provided by each vendor as well as any subcontractor responsible for carrying out those political activities.
“This creates real onerous requirements for the campaign treasurers,” Thompson said.
The campaign-finance bill restricting the reports to direct contractors was introduced at the request of Secretary of State Scott Schwab.
