In his first media availability since being ousted, former Iowa Human Services Director Jerry Foxhoven detailed what he thinks led to his forced resignation.
Foxhoven told members of the media Thursday morning he was shocked and completely caught off guard when the governor’s office asked him to resign.
“I had never been given any impression from the governor or her staff that we weren’t moving in the right direction,” Foxhoven said.
Gov. Kim Reynolds, R-Iowa, appointed Foxhoven to run the state’s human services department in June 2017.
DHS runs two major programs in Iowa:Medicaid and child welfare.
Foxhoven had a background in child welfare, but hadn’t overseen Medicaid programs before.
To help him with understanding Medicaid, Foxhoven and the governor’s office made a deal.
Reynold’s deputy chief of staff, Paige Thorson, would provide services to DHS and in return, DHS would pay more than two-thirds of her salary.
“The governor’s office said, ‘We’re going to have a health policy person that can help with Medicaid to a large degree. We think it would be valuable to Medicaid, [and the health policy person] can give you a lot of help on Medicaid,'” Foxhoven said. “It made sense.”
Foxhoven said he thinks it’s okay to pay someone with DHS funds if they’re doing work for DHS.
Six months after Foxhoven started, he hired Mike Randall to fill DHS’s vacant Medicaid director position.
Randall wasn’t from Iowa, so when it came time to draft the FY 2019 budget, the governor’s office asked Foxhoven to keep Thorson on his department’s payroll.
“They said, ‘Well, Mike Randall knows Medicaid. He doesn’t really know Iowa providers, doesn’t know our hospitals systems and so forth. This [governor’s office] person knows that and will help with that, can help make those connections,” Foxhoven said.“I said okay.”
When it came time to draft the FY 2020 budget, Foxhoven started to question if it was legal to continue paying Thorson because, he said, she was no longer providing services to DHS.
“I reached out to Sara [Criag Gongol], the governor’s chief of staff, [and] told her, because we’re preparing for next year, ‘So, we’re not going to pay that salary anymore right?'”Foxhoven said. “And she clearly said, ‘Yeah, we still expect youto.'”
Foxhoven said he told Gongol he planned on emailing the attorney general’s office on June 18 to ask for a legal opinion because he didn’t think that was legal.
That email was never sent because he was asked to resign on June 17.
“They knew that I was going to be sending an email to the attorney general’s office on Tuesday,” Foxhoven said. “Monday, they told me your position is over. Give me your key card and cell phone. Don’t go back to your office.”
Local 5’s Rachel Droze asked Foxhoven why he waited to send that email.
He said he waited because the attorneys assigned to DHS were in the middle of a trial and he wanted to wait until it was over.
“I really didn’t think it was going to be a problem to be honest with you,” Foxhoven said. “I really thought I would just be sending the email and either they would say it’s legal and it’s okay, or they’d say it’s not legal, which I believed, and then I say no, it’s not okay. They terminated me before I could send out that email.”
Soon after being asked to resign, the Associated Press obtained 350 pages of emails that included the words “Tupac” or “2Pac” that were sent to and from Foxhoven during his time as director.
Thursday, he told reporters that most of those emails were sent to him, not by him. “I didn’t send out 350 emails about Tupac or that’s all I would have done. It was a half a dozen of them, but I got tons of emails back from people saying I’m cool, which my kids think because the Tupac thing right now too, but always saying it’s nice have a little levity, nice to have people care about us, nice to have people that reach out…”
As for the Tupac-themed cookies that were enjoyed for his 65th birthday? Well, Foxhoven said employees brought those in for him.
Foxhoven said the email sent out on Valentine’s Day that included Tupac lyrics also included quotes from four other people, including Dr. Seuss, Bono, John Lennon and one other he couldn’t recall at the time.
Foxhoven did divulge that his favorite Shakur song is Changes, with California Love coming in at a close second.
Foxhoven’s abrupt departure didn’t gounnoticed.
One day after Foxhoven publicly stated hewas forced to resign because the governor’s office asked him to do somethingillegal, a special agent from the U.S. Department of Justice Office of theInspector General came knocking on his door and requested an interview.
Foxhoven said the Iowa State Auditor’sOffice interviewed him Tuesday about the matter.
Reynold’s released the followingstatement after Foxhoven’s press conference Thursday:
“As I have consistently shared withIowans, many factors went into my decision to ask for Jerry Foxhoven’sresignation. Foxhoven never raised concerns with me or my staff about thesalary agreements in question, and he never asked my staff for a legal opinionor said he would be reaching out to the Attorney General’s office for one. Iwould never ask anyone to do something they thought was illegal. My focusremains on the many Iowans that DHS serves, and I am committed to selecting anew director who will take this agency to the next level.”
“As I have consistently shared with Iowans, many factors went into my decision to ask for Jerry Foxhoven’s resignation. Foxhoven never raised concerns with me or my staff about the salary agreements in question, and he never asked my staff for a legal opinion or said he would be reaching out to the Attorney General’s office for one. I would never ask anyone to do something they thought was illegal. My focus remains on the many Iowans that DHS serves, and I am committed to selecting a new director who will take this agency to the next level.”