Troy, key player in ex-director’s forced resignation, is among employees released
The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission will eliminate 22 jobs on Sept. 30, 2009, in order to meet state budgetary constraints.
The Commission let seven employees go and will not fill 15 vacant positions. The state budget office said savings in salaries will total $786,008 from vacant positions and $417,248 from occupied jobs, a total of $1,203,256, according to Carol Batker, the Commission’s personnel director.
“Employees whose positions have been eliminated will work their last day on Sept. 30, and their positions will be abolished Oct. 1, 2009.” Batker said. “The vacant positions have already been abolished.”
Gordon Myers, the Commission’s executive director, informed the seven employees who will lose their jobs as part of a RIF (Reduction In Force) on Aug. 28, 2009.
“I gave final approval to the plan,” Myers said. “It was my decision. However, the plan … included collaboration with each division chief. The commission was not included in that process.”
One of the employees who lost her job was Joan Troy, the agency’s legal specialist and a central figure in the forced retirement of former executive director Richard B. “Dick” Hamilton in Aug. 2007.
An original attempt to fire Troy’s position was made in 2007 after she questioned whether the Commission should approve a Duke Energy request to ban boats and anglers from fishing near its dams. Troy noted that the commissioner David Hoyle Jr., son of a state senator, should recuse himself from discussion because he had earlier said that he had financial dealings with the company. Hoyle Jr. later said he had “misspoke” about his relationship with Duke Energy.
Hamilton said that the next working day, then-chairman Wes Seegars, vice-chair Steve Windham and commissioner Doug Parsons demanded that Hamilton fire Troy. Hamilton refused, citing Executive Order 75, put in place by former Gov. Jim Martin, that prohibits commissioners who are political appointees from interfering with Commission personnel decisions.
Hamilton, who worked for the Commission for 36 years, said he was given a choice of resigning or being fired; he chose to retire.
The Commission later moved Troy, who had served as legislative liaison for Hamilton, from the director’s office to the Enforcement Division, where she served as rules coordinator. However, she was banned from attending Commission meetings and continued to draw a $67,900 annual salary of $67,900 to file reports and copy documents. Last year, the Commission hired Sarah Clapp as legislative liaison at $49,000 per year.
While working for Hamilton, Troy helped craft rules that gave the Commission legislative authority to deal with transfers of cervids (deer, elk) inside North Carolina in order to prevent the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease. Earlier this year, she discovered that the Commission had been setting waterfowl seasons without proper legal authority; the Commission quickly worked with the legislature to correct the oversight.
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