Panel upholds firing of ex-Corrections secretary

Madison — Former state Corrections secretary Ed Wall knowingly sought to evade Wisconsin's open records law, a state panel found in upholding his firing.

In a six-page opinion this month, the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission threw out Wall's appeal of his dismissal from a backup job by Attorney General Brad Schimel earlier this year. The case was an unexpected outgrowth of the controversy over abuses at a juvenile prison that worsened under Wall's watch as corrections head.

After stepping down from his prisons post in February, Wall ran into trouble after he tried to secretly lobby GOP Gov. Scott Walker's chief of staff to return to his old job as the administrator of the state Division of Criminal Investigation. Wall wrote Rich Zipperer at his home address and suggested that the chief of staff should "feel free to shred" the letter after reading it so no public record would remain.

Zipperer instead reported the matter, and Schimel, a Republican, fired Wall — an action the commission upheld.

"Here Wall understood that the document indeed was a public record and that the only way to avoid the required disclosure was to unlawfully keep it 'strictly between you and me' as Wall proposed," the panel's decision reads. "Once the communication was disclosed, the attorney general had no choice but to terminate Wall. The action of a high-level administrator attempting to evade the law would significantly undermine the (Department of Justice) had lesser discipline been imposed."

The decision was made by three Walker appointees on the WERC: chairman James Scott, Rodney Pasch and James Daley.

SPECIAL REPORT: Crisis at Lincoln Hills years in making

RELATED: Walker casts doubt on Lincoln Hills alternative

In a statement, Schimel said he was pleased that the panel found he had "just cause to terminate Mr. Wall for attempting to violate the law.”

Wall's lawyer said he's likely to have a state circuit court review the decision, which is dated Dec. 15 but wasn't delivered to Wall until this week. Though the WERC's findings of fact generally can't be appealed, attorney Lester Pines said he believes the move to dismiss Wall over the open records issue was overly harsh.

"We are likely to seek review of the decision in the circuit court," Pines said. "We think there are some problems with the decision."

Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, said he hoped that the case signals there will be more serious regard for the open records law in the future by state workers and elected officials like Walker.

"This is the most severe consequence I'm aware of involving anyone violating our open records law," Lueders said.

In October 2012, Walker appointed Wall, then head of DOJ's Division of Criminal Investigation, to lead the Department of Corrections. In December 2015, Wall came under fire following revelations that first the Wisconsin Department of Justice and later the Federal Bureau of Investigation were conducting a massive investigation of alleged abuses at Lincoln Hills School for Boys in Irma, including potential second-degree sexual assault, neglect of children and intimidation of victims and witnesses.

In leaving the Corrections Department to seek his old job as administrator of the DCI, Wall came into conflict with Schimel, who wanted him kept out of the law enforcement division while it investigated the Lincoln Hills allegations. Schimel, who had to accept Wall back into the Department of Justice under state civil service law, first put Wall on paid leave and transferred him to a different $108,100-a-year job as deputy administrator in the Division of Law Enforcement Services.

Wall was in that job when he was fired.

In his appeal to the WERC, Wall said the administrator post at the Division of Criminal Investigation is meant to be a civil service job that is free of political consideration because of its key law enforcement role. His dismissal threatened to undermine the nonpartisan character of the job, he argued.