CHARLESTON, W.Va. — With less than 3½ months remaining in Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s second term, more top Tomblin officials are filing for employment exemptions with the West Virginia Ethics Commission, including Cabinet secretaries for the departments of Revenue and Health and Human Services.
Nine Tomblin administration officials have employment exemptions pending at Thursday’s commission meeting, topped by requests from DHHR Secretary Karen Bowling and Revenue Secretary Bob Kiss.
Before appointing him as head of Revenue in 2013, Tomblin shared a legislative history with Kiss dating back to the 1990s, when they served as Finance Committee chairmen in the Senate and House. Subsequently, Tomblin became Senate president in 1995, and Kiss became House speaker two years later.
During their tenures, the two were instrumental in passage of legislation setting up a funding plan to eliminate state pension fund liabilities, privatizing Workers’ Compensation, lowering corporate taxes and phasing out the sales tax on food.
Also in 2013, Tomblin appointed Bowling, a former CEO of Raleigh General Hospital, as secretary of the DHHR.
Under West Virginia’s Ethics Act, full-time public officials and ranking employees cannot seek employment with businesses or individuals regulated by their agency for one year after leaving public service, unless they obtain exemptions from the Ethics Commission.
Without the exemptions, staffers in the Governor’s Office and agencies such as Revenue effectively would be barred from private-sector employment anywhere in the state for one year.
Also seeking exemptions are: Mark Matkovich, state tax commissioner; Jeremiah Samples, deputy secretary of the DHHR; Robert Roswall, commissioner of the Bureau of Senior Services; John Herholdt Jr., director of the Division of Energy; Robert Wilson, environmental resources analyst in the Department of Environmental Protection; Jennelle Jones, deputy general counsel of the Department of Administration; and Dixie Billheimer, CEO of the Center for Professional Development.
The center had its funding cut by about one-third in the current state budget.
The most recent requests for employment exemptions make it 23 Tomblin administration officials who have requested permission to seek private-sector employment, including three other Cabinet secretaries.
Reach Phil Kabler at [email protected], 304 348-1220, or follow @PhilKabler on Twitter.