INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - A former top Indiana education official's role in the
sale of $1.7 million worth of videoconferencing equipment to the state by
Cisco Systems Inc., where he worked before and after holding that state
position, has added to calls to strengthen Indiana's ethics laws amid a
recent spate of boundary-pushing incidents.
Todd
Huston left his Department of Education job as chief of staff to former
Indiana Schools Superintendent Tony Bennett in 2010 for a position with
Cisco, where he had previously worked. He was involved in the 2012 sale of a
new TelePresence videoconferencing system to the DOE that officials later
determined was a waste of taxpayer money.
Although Huston says he was careful to keep his work for the state and for
Cisco separate over the years, good-governance watchdogs say his role in the
sale violated the spirit of Indiana's ethics rules designed to stop state
employees from cashing in on their public experience in the private sector.
Last
month, a top aide to Democratic Schools Superintendent Glenda Ritz filed an
ethics complaint with the inspector general's office alleging that state
workers violated contracting rules in making the purchase. The complaint
doesn't mention Huston directly. The allegation comes amid a slew of
high-profile ethics investigations this year which have found little formal
wrongdoing, but left state ethics officials faulting gaps in the law itself.
Huston told The Associated Press he wished he had not participated in talks
about the TelePresence sale and noted that he made no money in the
transaction. Huston said he sought ethics advice throughout his time at the
DOE and distanced himself from Cisco projects. He said he remembered the
videoconferencing equipment deal but didn't recall playing a major role in
the decision.
“I
didn't go there to work with the DOE,” Huston said of Cisco. “I went there
to work with higher ed.”
Watchdogs say Huston's involvement points to glaring flaws in Indiana's
ethics laws already exposed by other recent high-profile cases involving
Bennett, former Indiana Department of Transportation chief of staff Troy
Woodruff and state Rep. Eric Turner, who helped kill a nursing home
construction ban that could have cost his family business millions.
In
those cases, Bennett received a $5,000 fine for using state equipment for
campaign purposes but was told he could have avoided any penalty if he had
rewritten department rules to allow campaigning with public resources.
Turner, meanwhile, was cleared of any violations by the House Ethics
Committee but chastised for violating the “spirit” of the rules. State
investigators cleared Woodruff, as well, but said his actions went "right up
to that line" of violating the rules.
Huston left Cisco in 2009 to work as Bennett's chief of staff and returned
to the company in December 2010. In a Nov. 2010 email Huston sent the state
ethics counsel, he said he wouldn't be working with the Department of
Education in his job at Cisco and that he hadn't worked directly on Cisco
matters while working for the state.
But
documents obtained by The Associated Press through public records requests
show the two roles were often intertwined.
A
month after starting his state job in 2009, Huston set up a meeting between
Bennett and Cisco's top government salesman, Bruce Klein. Other calendar
entries show that from 2009 to 2010, he met regularly with Cisco salespeople
for lunch and dinner.
In
another email sent a month after leaving his state job, Huston asked
then-Louisiana Schools Superintendent Paul Pastorek for a meeting - first to
speak with Cisco's sales team and later to talk about Indiana education
policy. Even after leaving his state job, Huston kept a state email address,
which he had forwarded to his Cisco email address.
He
also joined meetings of top state and Cisco officials in May and July of
2012 over the contract to buy the videoconferencing equipment.
Huston on Wednesday called the email to Pastorek "an error in judgment" and
said many of his lunch and dinner meetings were with friends who worked at
Cisco.
Stuart Yoak, executive director of the Association for Practical and
Professional Ethics at Indiana University, said Huston's ties to Cisco and
the DOE could raise questions about his current work in the Indiana House of
Representatives, to which he was elected in 2012.
“Citizens have to have confidence in their state employees, both elected and
appointed, that their tax dollars are being used wisely to make purchasing
decisions,” he said.
Huston now works as a senior vice president for The College Board, helping
pitch states on their testing products.