N.D. Workers’ Comp Board Votes to Reinstate Director; Charges Dropped

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North Dakota’s workers compensation director, who until last week was facing a felony charge, has been given his job back, something Sandy Blunt was unsure would ever happen.

In a brief telephone meeting Monday, the directors of North Dakota’s Workforce Safety and Insurance agency voted to order Blunt back to work. He has been on paid leave since April 18, when he was charged with misspending agency funds and conspiring to disclose confidential driver’s license photos.

A judge dismissed the spending charges in August. The decision is being appealed to the North Dakota Supreme Court. Prosecutors dropped the driver’s license allegations last Friday, saying Blunt may have relied on mistaken legal advice about whether the photos were confidential.

“I just am … glad to hear that this is finally over with and done, and we can get back to work again,” board member J.P. Wiest said.

Blunt told reporters afterward that he “wasn’t sure that I would ever be walking back to this day.”

“When innocent parties are charged and you don’t have an opportunity to tell your side … you don’t know what’s going to happen. You begin to wonder, is the truth going to come out. But the judicial system did what it does,” Blunt said.

About 20 minutes after the board finished its meeting, Blunt arrived at WSI’s headquarters building in north Bismarck in a business suit. A group of employees and spectators applauded as he entered a conference room, and he exchanged hugs with some. He said he had not been in the building since he was put on leave.

“Frankly, the work force here is so phenomenal, it’s rather irrelevant who is sitting in this position,” Blunt said. “One of the first things we have to focus on is, what is the vision of the agency, how can we take care of the employers, how can we take care of the injured workers better … I’m going to have to catch up.”

Romi Leingang, who also was charged with conspiring to disclose confidential driver’s license photos, returned to work Monday, Blunt said.

Prosecutors also dropped the charge against Leingang on Friday. She is director of the agency’s special investigations unit. She was put on paid leave when the charges were filed. Blunt is paid $166,716 annually, while Leingang is paid $54,948.

Blunt and Leingang were charged after a state audit report, made public last November, questioned agency spending on meals, gifts and trinkets for Workforce Safety and Insurance employees and legislators.

It also questioned the agency’s use of Department of Transportation driver’s license photos, which are normally confidential records, as part of an investigation into the identity of a person who was e-mailing WSI salary information to employees.

The pay data is public, something that Blunt acknowledged Monday. However, the e-mail caused him to worry about whether someone had stolen confidential data from WSI’s computers, he said.

Agency supporters who attended the meeting, including Rep. George Keiser, R-Bismarck; Sen. Dick Dever, R-Bismarck; and Dave MacIver, president of the Greater North Dakota Chamber of Commerce, said they hoped Blunt’s return would bring some normalcy.

Keiser said state law on the proper spending of agency funds should be reviewed, saying Blunt was charged with two felonies for practices that are common elsewhere in state government.

“If Sandy Blunt violated the law, we have a lot of presidents of universities, we have people in other agencies who have violated the law in terms of this discretionary spending,” Keiser said. “Why are we just picking on Sandy Blunt?”