State Public Safety director to resign

CARSON CITY -- Law enforcement veteran Phil Galeoto is leaving as director of the Nevada Department of Public Safety at the end of the month, his office confirmed Tuesday.

Galeoto said in a memo that he will leave after 14 months on the job to spend more time with his family.

He was not available to elaborate on his decision to step down.

The news, sent out via e-mail to his employees, said he was retiring from law enforcement.

Galeoto was one of Jim Gibbons' first appointments as governor, having been named to the job just minutes after Gibbons' unusual midnight swearing-in on Jan. 1, 2007, at his Reno home.

The two appointees named by Gibbons just after the year 2007 began, Galeoto and Larry Martines as homeland security director, will soon leave or has already left the administration. Martines stepped down in July.

News that Galeoto was leaving was the second such departure that came to light on Tuesday.

Agriculture Department Director Donna Rise, who took over last year after the resignation of former director Don Henderson, also announced that she planned to return to Montana and resume a job as a bureau chief for that state's agriculture agency.

Rise was appointed by Gibbons in April following a search that, at the governor's urging, took only about a month.

She notified the 11-member board that oversees the agency of her intentions in a Jan. 28 letter to Chairman Lawrence Waugh.

"When I took the job, it was with the intent of finishing out my career, as director, for the next 15 years," Rise wrote. "One cannot, however, predict whether a role or experience is a good fit until such time as they are tried."

She said although she values the experience, "it has become clear to me that the position of director is not a particularly good fit for me."

Her resignation is effective Feb. 20. Under state law, Deputy Director Rick Gimlin will assume the post until the board recommends a permanent replacement to the governor, who makes the final selection.

Galeoto spent 24 years with the Reno Police Department. He had just returned from Iraq where he was director of the Baghdad Police College before being named by Gibbons to the top Public Safety job.

Some questions were raised about Galeoto just after his appointment when reports surfaced that he resigned his job as a Reno police officer in 1999 following an internal affairs investigation.

Gibbons defended his selection despite newspaper reports in which the Reno police chief said Galeoto had jeopardized the safety of fellow officers when he failed to enter arrest warrants into a police computer.

Galeoto left the police job of his own volition.

Galeoto, who had returned from Iraq on Christmas Eve after serving a year in the Baghdad Police College position, said last year that he had made a mistake eight years ago and had learned from that mistake. He defended his record as an administrator and law enforcement officer.

Various divisions within Galeoto's department have been the focus of routine review by legislative auditors in recent months. Audits of the state Fire Marshal Division, the Investigation Division and the Capitol Police Division were released last year.

Audits of the Highway Patrol and Division of Parole and Probation are set for release at a meeting of the Legislative Commission's Audit Subcommittee on Feb. 29.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.