An attorney general's investigation of criminal misconduct and a probe by legislative leadership began to focus Monday on a private, nonprofit company's connection with legislative staff and former legislators.
The controversy swirls around Exodus Inc., which seeks to help inmates find jobs and housing as they're released from prison. There are two separate investigations and two separate incidents of alleged misconduct.The most recent occurred just a few days ago at the end of the 1995 legislative session. Someone changed one item in the $4.9 billion budget bill after legislative leaders drafted it. The budget was then passed by the House and Senate with no legislator aware of the change.
Monday morning, Legislative leaders vowed to find out who changed the budget bill last week from general "intent" language that said $90,000 should be used to "reduce recidivism" in prison inmates to actually naming Exodus as the recipient of the money. Leaders scheduled a Monday afternoon meeting to look into how the Appropriations Act was apparently changed after the act was drafted by the Executive Appropriations Committee meeting Feb. 24.
"We're going to find out what happened (in the changed budget bill), who did it, and change the internal controls so this doesn't happen again," House Speaker Mel Brown, R-Midvale said Monday morning.
The apparent change of the Appropriations Act is serious, said Brown and House Budget Chairman Marty Stephens, R-Farr West.
For it appears that someone who had access to the drafting of the huge budget bill - more than 300 pages long - changed language approved by the Executive Appropriations Committee, which puts the budget together.
Compounding the concern is that several former powerful legislators, including former Sen. Haven Barlow and former House Speaker Glen Brown, brother of Mel Brown, are volunteers at the prison who have high regard for what Exodus is doing and are advocates for its work.
Mel Brown said what concerns him about the changing of the budget bill is that "intent" language drafted by his brother, Glen, which would have made it clear that Exodus didn't automatically get the $90,000 but would have to compete for it with other recidivism programs, was purposely changed.
"We wanted an open (bid) process," said Mel Brown on Monday. "No one, whether it be a single legislator or a staff member, can change intent language in the budget act. I promise, we'll get to the bottom of this."
A bigger issue, said Mel Brown, is internal controls. "We have to make sure that staff doesn't change anything. In the crush of business in the last days, we have to rely on them. No one, except maybe some staff members, reads the whole budget bill."
There's a history between Exodus, Barlow and previous state budgets.
Several years ago Barlow was instrumental in getting $40,000 appropriated directly to Exodus. But Department of Corrections officials said they couldn't give money directly to a private company so they put a contract out to bid asking for services similar to those provided by Exodus.
After some haggling, department officials were told the money had to go to Exodus, and at a meeting in December of 1994, Corrections executive director Lane McCotter said the money was given to Exodus in the form of a grant.
The following year, $90,000 was earmarked for a general program that supported recently paroled inmates and helped them find jobs. Its aim - to reduce recidivism.
The department used the same request for the proposal it drafted the previous year, but never used because the contract was never put out to bid. Four companies participated in the blind-bidding process. Valley Mental Health came in first and was selected to provide the services. Exodus came in last of the four bidders.
Again department officials were reprimanded for not following legislative intent. At a number of meetings held at the end of 1994 and the beginning of 1995, department officials and members of the Executive Office, Courts and Corrections Appropriations Subcommittee and Legislative fiscal analyst Bill Dinehart tried to decide if the bidding process was done correctly.
Barlow and Dinehart, who puts together the Legislature's corrections budget, complained the wrong criteria were used in making that selection. Others complained that Barlow was trying to craft "intent language" in the budget bill so that only Exodus could win the contract.
Ultimately, it was decided that the department acted properly and the contract, for $90,000, should be awarded to Valley Mental Health. But the alleged criminal behavior took place outside official meetings, according to a memo drafted at the end of January by assistant attorney general Frank Mylar to solicitor general, Carol Clawson.
The memo accuses both Barlow and Dinehart of criminal solicitation, threats to influence official action and interfering with a public servant, all class A misdemeanors.
Dinehart didn't want to comment on any specifics until he saw the memo but said he denied doing anything illegal.
"You've got to be kidding," he said. "The kind of work that I'm involved in, you can't possibly be involved in anything criminal."
Barlow couldn't be reached for comment, but in an earlier interview with the Deseret News he said he only sought funding for Exodus because he was impressed with the services they offered.
He said the RFP used by the department to solicit bids didn't meet the intent of the Legislature.
"In my opinion, it was not properly done," he said at the end of December. He added that he and other legislators assumed Exodus would get the money because they weren't aware of any other private organizations that provided similar services.
The memo recommends that Dinehart be removed from his job and Barlow be reprimanded by the Legislature. Earlier in 1994 Barlow decided to retire from the Legislature after serving 42 years, longer than any other Utahn. He didn't seek re-election in 1994.
The memo says that after the Dec. 6, 1994, meeting between the Legislative subcommittee and corrections officials, Dinehart approached two department employees, who're in charge of procurement of contracts, and told them they'd better find a way to give the contract to Exodus or they'd have difficulty in the Legislature.
The memo says he also told them there will be "hell to pay" if Exodus doesn't get the contract. It alleges that Dinehart further tried to persuade the department to give the contract to Exodus by adding that it is really an extension of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but they couldn't mention that.
Exodus has no connection at all to the LDS Church, except that many of the volunteers are members of the church.
Both of the department officials who were approached after the Dec. 6 meeting said they believed Dinehart's comments to be threats. They said he told them that the small amount of money involved "wasn't worth the political heat."