Saturday, December 20, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

CCSN TURMOIL: Report cites bias at college

Private investigator says hiring process rife with partisan politics

The 1,026-page investigative report that prompted the Board of Regents to demote two Community College of Southern Nevada officials casts the institution as a place where Democratic legislators, associates of lawmakers and chums of those in charge were handed cushy jobs.

Allegations of partisan hiring contributed to regents' decisions to remove Ron Remington as the school's president and reassign college lobbyist John Cummings last month.

"That's a huge issue," said Regent Bret Whipple, who voted with the majority in the 7-6 decision to demote Remington. "The hiring process and the way that seems to have been manipulated so easily is very troublesome."

The report, prepared by private investigator Jeffrey Cohen, was a compilation of college communications and transcripts of unsworn interviews. It was made public last week. Cohen's inquiry was ordered after the college attempted to fire a clerical trainee who was a friend of Democratic Assemblyman Wendell Williams.

In the interviews, numerous people raised questions about hiring and contracts obtained through ties to Cummings.

"It's pretty obvious that jobs were handed out as political favors," said state Assemblyman Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas.

Beers, a critic of increased spending in higher education budgets, notes that Ray Rawson, vice chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Chris Giunchigliani, the vice chair of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, and Mark Manendo, the chairman of the Assembly Government Affairs Committee, are employed by the college. Rawson is the only Republican among the three.

"It smells bad," said Beers, who plans to challenge Rawson in next year's election. "You don't even have to get beyond the appearance before people's radar starts going up."

Giunchigliani's hiring was among those mentioned in the report. She said the idea that the school gives jobs as favors is inaccurate.

"That's the perception that some of the regents had created as a result of the investigation, the perception that the college is just hiring people on a whim," she said. "That just isn't true."

Cohen's report addresses several hires:

• Giunchigliani's hiring in Cummings' department.

• Assemblyman Mark Manendo, D-Las Vegas, as a high school recruiter.

• Sonya Jefferson, a friend of Assemblyman Morse Arberry, D-Las Vegas, in Cummings' department.

• Gina Smolka, the sister of Cummings' fiancee, Gretchen Smolka.

• Topazia "Briget" Jones, a friend of Williams, D-Las Vegas.

• Diana Wilson, associated with Cummings through Paladin Advertising, was named interim chief development officer in September 2002 without a search. The position paid $100,000 per year.

Al Daniels, executive director of continuing education at the college, told Cohen that all the hirings with potential partisan ties probably were done in a way to feign official processes, including the establishment of committees.

"I suspect the committee was picked so that it would favorably come out in this manner," Daniels told the investigator.

Cummings has denied manipulating the hiring process, both in interviews and in his statement to the investigator, saying that while he introduced people to others at the college, he did not set up committees.

"I have never been involved in a process at the college in which committee members have been selected," Cummings told the investigator.

In her statement to Cohen, Jones said Cummings sought $500,000 in security funding for the college so he could continue to pay for both her salary and Jefferson's, suggesting that Cummings had authority in personnel decisions.

"He tried to explain how there were several different things that he needed to do with the money, including moving some people around and hiring others," Jones told Cohen.

Cummings has acknowledged that he gave Jones a job because of Williams' recommendation. Shortly after she was hired, Jones made trips to Carson City, where she wore a jacket on the Assembly floor identifying herself as Williams' assistant.

When Jones was reassigned to a college office in Southern Nevada, her supervisors began documenting poor performance and attendance. A memo to Remington, included in the report, outlined several days that she didn't show up to work or worked only a few hours.

In that memo to Remington, Debra Solt said Jones made references to her relationship to Williams in reminding colleagues that she answered to none of them. When Jones began complaining about her work schedule, Solt said she was advised by Daniels "to consider Briget's relationship with Mr. Williams and not cause any problems."

Solt said she subsequently was ordered to give Jones a key to their Green Valley office "to make sure Briget could get in the office at the times she wanted to."

A motion by regents to fire Jones failed at their Nov. 20 meeting.

Manendo said he "went through a process that everybody goes through" when he got his job as a college recruiter. His annual salary is $30,000.

"I saw the job posted on the Internet, applied and just like with anybody else with any other position, I just followed the process," Manendo said. "I went through the interviews and then the wait was forever before I found out."

Giunchigliani, the college's director of school district and community relations, said she was "highly qualified" for the job after two decades of experience as a teacher. Her annual salary is $70,000.

According to the college's Web site, her office's mission is to "provide support, information and coordination between Clark, Esmerelda (sic), Nye and Lincoln County School Districts and the community college. We will promote careers, community involvement and diversity on behalf of students, faculty, parents, advocacy organizations and government."

Manendo and Giunchigliani were hired within a month of one another during the summer of 2002. After less than half a year on the job, both took months of unpaid leave from the college to serve in the 2003 Legislature.

Giunchigliani's supervisor was Cummings, who lobbied her and other lawmakers at the Legislature on behalf of the college.

Larry Braxton, a felon and former college employee, wrote a memo suggesting Cummings' fingerprints were on college contracts as well. Cohen used the Braxton memo as the basis for his probe into Paladin Advertising.

The report includes Braxton's allegations that Cummings worked to get contracts for his friends at Paladin Advertising, a company for which Cummings lobbied the Legislature in 1999.

Cummings sought the hiring of Paladin in 2001 despite the college's existing contract with Shonkwiler Advertising.

Shonkwiler was notified its contract was being terminated in an Oct. 4, 2001, memo from Patty Charlton, the college's vice president for finance.

Terry Shonkwiler immediately fired off a letter to Remington, saying his company had gotten its work through a Request For Proposals and interview process.

"Now I understand Jon Cummins (sic) has brought in his personal ad agency without any RFP and without even having the courtesy of speaking to us," Shonkwiler wrote.

He also told Remington he expected to be treated in a more professional manner given the work he had conducted for the college.

"I understand any leader wants his own people to work with," Shonkwiler wrote. "However, I do not appreciate the manner with which this issue was handled."

Cummings told the investigator he recommended Paladin because the college's 3.5 percent enrollment growth was lower than expected, and that he felt Shonkwiler was not the best choice.

"Paladin, I knew, was a younger firm, was a hipper firm, could appeal to -- could put an advertising campaign that would appeal to a demographic that CCSN needed to attract," Cummings told Cohen.

Michael Sullivan, president of Paladin, said he believes his company got its foot in the door because of Cummings, but its work spoke for itself.

"Certainly the fact that I knew him and that we were friends got us the entree," he said. "But the fact that we kept the contract for so long is because we did the job."

Sullivan said enrollment at the college increased 9 percent as a result of ads his agency created. He noted that the $700,000 contract with the college includes television and radio buys as well as outdoor advertising space. "We get 15 percent of that, not the whole amount," Sullivan said.

Sullivan, a Democrat, said he doesn't believe the college favors Democrats over Republicans for jobs or contracts. "First of all, (Republican state Sen.) Ray Rawson works out there."

Unlike the recent hires addressed in the report, Rawson is a longtime employee of the college. Rawson, the supervising dentist and head of the dental hygiene program at the college, was hired in 1979 has an annual salary of $187,879.

"They named a building after (Republican Senate Majority Leader) Bill Raggio. The allegation that there's any partisanship going on is just crazy," Sullivan added.

State Sen. Sandra Tiffany, R-Henderson, who has also been highly critical of large increases in higher education funding, agreed with Sullivan.

"I think the colleges always made sure they had friends in the Legislature," Tiffany said. "Higher ed has usually done pretty well with the budget process. I don't think it's Republican-Democrat as much as it is seeking influence."

Giunchigliani said she thinks Remington created an atmosphere of fairness in hiring at the college after the tumultuous reign of former president Richard Moore.

"I think it's left over really from the Moore days, more than from John Cummings," Giunchigliani said. "I just think there was an established management style that it was whoever Moore wanted.

"Remington had helped change that," she added. "That's the irony."