State job remains vacant

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By SCOTT BAUER / The Associated Press

A so-called “critical” state job once held by former Gov. Mike Johanns’ campaign manager has been vacant since she left six months ago to work on another Republican political campaign — raising questions about need for the position.

“It would make you wonder how vital the position was, wouldn’t it?” said state Sen. Don Pederson about the job once held by Vicki Powell in the office of Republican Attorney General Jon Bruning.

Powell, who twice served as Johanns’ campaign manager, was hired Feb. 9 as Bruning’s “senior citizen outreach coordinator,” a post he said he still considers critical.

Powell left the $59,000-a-year job on May 12 to become U.S. Rep. Tom Osborne’s gubernatorial campaign manager. She served as Johanns’ campaign manager in both 1998 and 2002.

Her office was located across the hall from Bruning’s in the Capitol, leading some to question whether her hire was politically motivated.

At the time, Bruning was rumored to be considering a run for governor or U.S. Senate.

Powell is no stranger to state jobs.

After successfully guiding Johanns’ first campaign, Powell was hired by the governor in 1999 to work as a staff assistant in his office working to find candidates to serve on various boards and commissions. She worked in that position from January 1999 through Aug. 30, 2002, and was paid $32,792 a year.

However, she was on unpaid leave from June 20, 2001, through Aug. 30, 2002, state employee records show. Johanns won re-election, in a campaign also run by Powell, in November 2002.

Powell did not return to working for the state until Bruning came calling in February.

But after just three months on the job, Powell left the attorney general’s office to work as campaign manager for Osborne, who is supported in his run for governor by Bruning.

Powell said she liked her job with Bruning, and intended to stay longer, but couldn’t pass up the opportunity to work with Osborne.

“I felt bad because I hadn’t been there very long,” she said.

Bruning was so sensitive about the questions over Powell’s hiring that he announced on the same day as his budget hearing before the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee that he was going to seek re-election and not run for a different office.

That didn’t stop lawmakers from asking Bruning about Powell at the March hearing.

Pederson, chairman of the committee, quizzed Bruning on why he hired Powell, who is not an attorney, to replace an attorney in the fraud division who had left.

Pederson said Wednesday he didn’t think the position was necessary, especially given that other private groups are doing the same type of fraud prevention work.

“I said at the time that Vicki Powell’s only history had been running campaigns, not certainly getting into something that she knew nothing about,” Pederson said.

Bruning said at the hearing that Powell’s statewide contacts were valued in the position. He said she was going to be required to make presentations across Nebraska to help prevent fraud against older people.

However, Powell left the office before any of those presentations were made, Bruning said Wednesday.

Powell spent her three months on the job meeting with senior citizen groups and setting up the education program, which has since been presented about 18 times across the state by others in the office, Bruning said.

“She was working hard. Vicki Powell is a hard worker, there’s no doubt about it,” Bruning said.

Since Powell left, her work has been done by two other employees in the office. Interviews are under way to find a replacement, Bruning said.

A replacement wasn’t found sooner because Bruning said he was looking for ways his office could save money.

“I believe the position is critical to the mission of the attorney general’s office in that it helps senior understand the fraud that occurs and helps seniors protect themselves,” he said. “We will fill it.”