Detroit inspector general reacts after Mike Duggan declines to punish staff

Three days after Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan declined her recommendation to punish three employees amid a controversy involving a prenatal health program, the city's inspector general wrote Friday that "when discipline does not match the wrong-doings, it can easily be viewed as favoritism."

Inspector General Ellen Ha did not name the mayor or refer directly to her office's recent investigation into Duggan's ties to the prenatal program known as Make Your Date. But in a guest opinion column submitted to the Free Press Ha wrote that "several published reports" from her office have called for discipline of employees and she has found a reluctance by city leaders to do so. 

"When government officials fail to act on our recommendations, the findings contained in our reports have lessened impact," she wrote. "Without the sound endorsement of our recommendations from our government, we cannot be as effective." 

Ha warned the city can ill afford a return to an atmosphere that fostered recent scandals under previous mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, which included multiple indictments, or the financial missteps that led to municipal bankruptcy. She said her office, created in a charter revision in 2012, is designed to be a protective measure.

"The City of Detroit cannot afford to go back where darkness lingers, where friends, family, and certain favored people are treated differently," she wrote

Her office declined to comment beyond the column submitted to the newspaper.

In response to Ha's column, mayoral spokesman John Roach said Friday the city takes every inspector general report "very seriously."

"Any time the OIG finds that any city employee violated the charter or any time the OIG makes a finding that an employee violated any city ordinance, policy or rule, that employee is disciplined appropriately."

Duggan announced Tuesday that Chief of Staff Alexis Wiley and two other city workers involved in deleting government emails about Make Your Date — chief development officer Ryan Friedrichs and his deputy, Sirene Abou-Chakra — would undergo public records training but receive no formal punishment. 

The mayor characterized the email deletions as a "mistake in judgment," done to protect junior staffers from exposure in ongoing media coverage of the Make Your Date controversy. Duggan said then he believed his decision to issue no formal punishment was appropriate. 

The decision came despite Ha's blistering report that found Wiley abused her authority by twice ordering city staff to delete dozens of emails related to Make Your Date. The report also found that Duggan provided preferential treatment to the prenatal health program, which is run by a woman with close ties to him.

More: Mayor Mike Duggan set her up to succeed. That raises questions.

More: Duggan administration admonished for preferential treatment of Make Your Date program

In Friday's column, Ha wrote in general terms about her office's recent findings in several probes:

"The assumption was that the head of the agency would review and consider the IG’s recommendations and act upon them," she wrote.

In the Make Your Date case, the deleted emails — most of which were later recovered and revealed information about the city's fundraising activities for Make Your Date — remain the subject of a criminal investigation by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel's office. Several of the recovered emails directly contradicted previous Duggan administration statements about the extent of the city's fundraising efforts on behalf of Make Your Date. Duggan ordered the fundraising effort, a Free Press investigation found earlier this year.

Ha noted in her column that "good people can make well-intended decisions that impact the public’s ability to trust those who govern the city" and said "rules and discipline should apply universally and equally to all employees regardless of the position they hold."

The city's charter and debarment ordinance allow the inspector general to ban contractors and subcontractors for certain misconduct, but the charter does not specifically address what authority the office has over public officials and employees.

"When an agency that is charged to ensure honesty and integrity in city government cannot serve its full purpose, the result is erosion of public trust," Ha wrote.

A separate OIG report earlier this month determined that staff members of the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners lied to investigators, who determined the board abused its authority and violated Michigan’s Open Meetings Act when it allowed its secretary to make a series of hires behind closed doors.

In that case, the board also decided not to dole out any punishment to the staffers. Ha said her office takes "no pleasure in recommending discipline." 

In her column, Ha wrote that faith in government is vital to Detroit's success.

"Democracy is based on public trust which demands transparency from those who govern and serve the public. Building trust takes great effort and time, while losing trust takes little in effort or time."

Kat Stafford is the Detroit government watchdog reporter for the Free Press, covering city issues and the community.  A Detroit native, Stafford is vice president of the Detroit chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.  She was recently named an Ida B. Wells Fellow, a national investigative reporting fellowship. Contact her at kstafford@freepress.com or 313-223-4759.