Owens Legacy

Denver Post
denver & the west

Owens staff receives bonuses

Top Cabinet officials were rewarded for not leaving their jobs before he left his

By Mark P. Couch
Denver Post Staff Writer

Article Last Updated: 02/04/2007 01:35:07 AM MST

The top officials in former Republican Gov. Bill Owens' Cabinet earned two weeks of bonus pay for staying on the job with him in his final year in office.

The bonuses - totaling about $64,000 to 12 executive directors - came on top of a lump-sum payment of $309,000 that the officials received for unused sick leave and vacation time.

State workers are allowed to collect payments for vacation and sick leave when they retire, but most don't get bonuses for staying on the job.

"These are public service positions and it seems that lavish bonuses for political appointees merely to stay in the job violates the notion of public service," said Bill Vandenberg, co-executive director for Colorado Progressive Coalition, a watchdog group.

"Shoveling more taxpayer funds at them just to stay at the job they're doing fails the smell test," Vandenberg said.

Marva Livingston Hammons, who led the state Department of Human Services, took the largest amount - $61,099. Most of her payment - $55,528 - was for vacation time. Her bonus was $5,571.

Hammons was one of the officials in charge of implementing the Colorado Benefits Management System, the troubled computer system that has paid welfare recipients millions more than it should have.

Hammons could not be reached for comment Saturday.

Dan Hopkins, who served as spokesman for Owens, said: "It was a reasonable incentive for people who clearly could have found positions elsewhere to stay through to the end of the governor's term."

Hopkins said he was unaware whether previous governors used such an incentive.

Rick Grice, former executive director of the Department of Labor and Employment, said the payment is not a one-for-one match for unused sick leave.

Grice said workers cashing out their unused time get one day of pay for every six days of earned sick leave.

Grice's total payout, including bonus, vacation and sick leave, was $29,850.

The money, Grice said, is being used to re-start the executive-recruiting business he ran before joining the Owens administration eight years ago.

Lawmakers in charge of writing the state budget have been looking into departments' practice of leaving positions unfilled to make such payouts.

"I'm not happy that the number has been established scientifically," said Rep. Bernie Buescher, D-Grand Junction, vice chairman of the Joint Budget Committee. "In private industry, I would accrue sick leave and vacation pay as it is earned."

The cost of the executive payouts is relatively small compared with the total cost for thousands of state workers - an amount that is nearly impossible to determine in the current budget system, Buescher said.

Evan Dreyer, spokesman for Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter, said the new administration will review the payout system.

"We will take a look at these numbers," Dreyer said, "to see if things are within the realm of standard operating procedure.

"If there's anything out of whack, we'll take a look to make sure that taxpayer dollars are always treated with the highest value."

Farewell checks

Annual leave, sick leave and bonus payout for former Gov. Owens' Cabinet members.

Marva Livingston Hammons, executive director, Department of Human Services - $61,099

Tom Norton, executive director, Department of Transportation - $45,239

M. Michael Cooke, executive director, Department of Revenue - $37,732

Don Ament, commissioner, Department of Agriculture - $35,097

Jeff Wells, executive director, Department of Personnel and Administration - $33,062

Jenna Langer, executive director, Colorado Commission on Higher Education - $31,866

Rick Grice, executive director, Department of Labor and Employment - $29,850

Tambor Williams, executive director, Department of Regulatory Agencies - $26,067

Joe Morales, executive director, Department of Public Safety - $24,933

Brian Vogt, executive director, Department of Local Affairs - $21,133  

Joe Ortiz, executive director, Department of Corrections - $19,923

Steve Tool, executive director, Department of Health Care Policy and Financing - $7,391

Source: Colorado Department of Personnel and Administration

Staff writer Mark P. Couch can be reached at 303-954-1794 or mcouch@denverpost.com.

Denver Post
denver & the west

Owens says thanks with your cash

By Diane Carman
Denver Post Staff Columnist

Article Launched: 02/06/2007 01:00:00 AM MST

A bouquet would have been nice. Maybe a sheet cake.

But former Gov. Bill Owens, for whom "eliminating wasteful government spending" was practically a religion, instead gave his 12 Cabinet members $64,000 in going-away gifts on his way out the door last month.

As if it were his money to spend.

So exactly who got these tokens of appreciation on top of $309,000 in legitimate payments for unused sick leave and vacation time? Let's see ...

Joe Ortiz, director of the Department of Corrections, is one.

You remember Joe. In 2005, the state auditor's office found that he had provided such lax oversight of privately owned prisons that inmates were dying for lack of basic medical care. In another spectacular stumble, a small inmate disturbance at the Crowley County Correctional Facility in 2004 erupted into a riot that left 13 people hospitalized and the prison in shambles after the DOC waited two hours before dispatching a response team to the facility - 7 miles away.

Ortiz got a $5,249.54 goodbye bonus.

Tom Norton, director of the Department of Transportation, got extra walking-around money from taxpayers too.

He's the political appointee who tried to derail the FasTracks ballot measure a month before the election by musing publicly that state taxpayers might have to cover the cost of highway improvements to support the light-rail system.

When voters overwhelmingly approved FasTracks anyway, Norton, who theoretically is supposed to be in favor of transportation, tried to renege on an earlier agreement to exchange rights of way in a blatant attempt to stall light-rail construction and drive up costs.

He got $5,399.20.

Then there is Don Ament. Farmers in the throes of a devastating drought in 2002 wondered if the state commissioner of agriculture was a bit daft when he came out in favor of the nutty "Big Straw" project, which would have built a Rube Goldberg system of electric pumps and reservoirs to move Colorado River water 200 miles from the western border back over the Continental Divide to be sprinkled on Front Range lawns.

When he helped a pharmaceutical firm get approval for an experiment in biopharming in tornado alley, a lot of farmers quit wondering.

His bonus was $5,399.54.

Rick Grice, director of labor, who oversaw the installation of a $39 million computer system to track unemployment taxes and benefits, got $5,399.60, despite that the system didn't work and cost the state $2.3 million more for a last-ditch effort to decode the bum software.

Director of Human Services Marva Hammons is taking extra cash into her retirement too, although she's probably the only appointee to have been repeatedly threatened with citations for contempt of court.

Most recently she was criticized by a judge for failing to get mentally incompetent defendants out of the state's jails and into mental hospitals. Another judge threatened her with jail time in 2001 for misspending state funds and disobeying court orders to provide housing and treatment for the chronically mentally ill under the 1994 Goebel Settlement.

Then there was her stunning mismanagement of the Colorado Benefits Management System, which resulted in tens of thousands of the state's most vulnerable people being left without support for weeks. Yet another judge had to threaten Hammons with a contempt-of-court citation to get the problem solved.

Her take of the spoils: $5,571.04.

My favorite recipient of Bill Owens' farewell palm-greasing, though, is Jenna Langer, director of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education.

Langer doesn't have any prison riots or contempt of court citations on her résumé. In fact, she doesn't have much to claim during her tenure as director of the agency, which is hardly surprising. She was appointed in the waning hours of Owens' final term after Rick O'Donnell quit to run for Congress.

Langer held the position for less than nine months. She got $4,999.76.

Easy money.

Diane Carman's column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-954-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.

Denver Post
denver & the west

Owens' bonus payouts: $187,298

Higher total outrages lawmakers, workers. The awards, some of which were disclosed last week, apparently came from the governor s office budget. An Owens aide called them reasonable.

By Mark P. Couch
Denver Post Staff Writer

Article Last Updated: 02/07/2007 11:37:00 AM MST

Former Republican Gov. Bill Owens approved $187,298 in bonuses to top political appointees and other staff members in the waning days of his administration, according to public records obtained by The Denver Post.

The payments - equal to two weeks' salary - were designed to reward officials for staying through the end of 2006. Owens' term expired on Jan. 9.

"The Governor is extremely grateful for the extra time you have dedicated to assisting the transition team of Governor-elect Bill Ritter," Bob Lee, Owens' chief of staff, wrote in a Dec. 6 memo to bonus recipients.

Lee received a $7,051 bonus.

The Post on Sunday disclosed $64,000 in bonus payments to 12 department heads. The new total includes all department heads who stayed through the end of Owens' term and more than 40 employees in the governor's office.

Owens, who is traveling outside the U.S. this week, was unavailable for comment. Dan Hopkins, Owens' ex- spokesman, has said the bonuses were a "reasonable incentive" to keep employees from bolting to private-sector jobs.

The payments by a self-professed fiscal conservative have prompted an uproar among elected officials, state workers and government-watchdog groups.

Rep. Al White, R-Winter Park, quipped that Owens was acting like a "sugar daddy."

"It appears the governor was overly generous with the distribution of bonuses to his Cabinet and staff members," White said.

Jeremiah Attridge, president of a union local representing 87 state workers, called on Attorney General John Suthers to investigate the payments.

"This is just like the icing on the cake with this guy," said Attridge, noting that pay increases for state workers in recent years have not kept pace with inflation.

Bill Vandenberg, co-director of the Colorado Progressive Coalition, was outraged by the previous disclosures of bonus payments of $64,000 to 12 outgoing Cabinet members.

"It's even more offensive," Vandenberg said of the higher bonus payout. "It's an insult to Colorado taxpayers and to public employees who aren't appointees of the governor."

Jim Carpenter, chief of staff for former Democratic Gov. Roy Romer, said Romer did not provide such bonuses.

Former Democratic Gov. Dick Lamm said he sympathizes with the problem of keeping officials on the job at the end of a term but added that he is "99 percent certain" that his administration did not offer bonuses.

The disclosure of bonus payments comes at a time when the state's budget-writing lawmakers are cracking down on departments for keeping some jobs vacant to cover the costs of vacation and sick-leave payments.

The bonus money apparently came from such savings in the governor's office budget.

"We believe that money came out of the governor's office," said Rich Gonzales, executive director of the Colorado Department of Personnel and Administration, in a meeting with the Joint Budget Committee on Tuesday.

Sen. Abel Tapia, D-Pueblo, chairman of the Budget Committee, said state departments should not be allowed to keep the savings from vacant positions as a "pot of money" that can be used to make large payouts to state workers.

The committee voted Tuesday to reduce the state personnel budgets by $3.9 million to ensure that money is not being set aside for such payments.

"The people out in the state of Colorado are going to say, 'Here it goes again - they're using state money for bonuses and telling us they don't have enough for education,"' Tapia said. "We keep giving people ammunition for that."

Staff writer Mark P. Couch can be reached at 303-954-1794 or mcouch@denverpost.com.

Denver Post
denver & the west

Owens' Cabinet payouts won't see repeat, says Ritter official

By Mark P. Couch
Denver Post Staff Writer

Article Last Updated: 02/08/2007 02:45:53 AM MST

Colorado statehouse officials said Wednesday that they will seek ways to rein in lavish paydays for top state executives in the wake of disclosures that former Gov. Bill Owens' Cabinet cashed in thousands of dollars in unused vacation and sick leave.

In total, senior members of the outgoing Republican administration collected at least $64,000 in bonuses and another $309,000 for unused vacation and sick leave.

Bonuses are an unusual incentive that neither of the previous Democratic administrations used to keep senior executive directors on staff to the end of the governor's term.

The sick-leave and vacation paychecks collected by Owens officials far exceed the amount that rank-and-file state workers can collect when they leave their government jobs. For their first five years on the job, workers can bank up to 192 hours. After 16 years on the job, workers can accrue up to 336 hours.

The Owens administration policy, adopted in July 2004, was to allow its executive directors to save unused vacation time without limit. After four years on the job, employees were entitled to 20 days, or 160 hours, of vacation a year. Upon termination, they would be paid for that time.

Four of the top officials in Owens' Cabinet cashed in more than 336 hours of vacation time when they left office.

Marva Hammons, former executive director of the Department of Human Services, claimed to have 823 hours, or more than 20 weeks, of unused vacation time. For that time, she received $55,528, according to state records.

Tom Norton, former executive director of the Department of Transportation, collected $39,840 for 590 hours, or 14.75 weeks, of unused vacation time.

Jenna Langer, former executive director of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, took $23,955 for 383 hours, or 9.5 weeks, in unused vacation.

M. Michael Cooke, former executive director of the Department of Revenue, received $25,063 for 371 hours, or about nine weeks, of unused vacation.

Norton said the pay was fair because he could have earned more on other public-sector transportation jobs.

When asked why department directors should face no limits on collecting vacation time while pothole-filling crew members do, Norton said that's the way the system is set up.

"They also get paid at a level of the work that they do," Norton said. "It's a judgment factor in terms of what people ought to be paid."

Langer said she was too busy to take vacation.

"Frankly, I never had the opportunity to take a lot of vacation time," she said.

Hammons and Cooke could not be reached for comment.

Evan Dreyer, spokesman for Gov. Bill Ritter, said Ritter's Cabinet will probably have a "use-it- or-lose-it" policy for unused vacation and sick time.

Mark Schwane, executive director of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, a union representing 1,000 state workers, said he is working on a bill that would eliminate bonuses for senior executive staff.

His goal is not to punish Ritter appointees, he said, but to protect taxpayers.

Staff writer Mark P. Couch can be reached at 303-954-1794 or mcouch@denverpost.com.

Denver Post
denver & the west

Top Owens officials got job promise

By Mark P. Couch
Denver Post Staff Writer

Article Last Updated: 02/21/2007 06:19:15 AM MST

Cash bonuses to top bureaucrats weren't the only perk bestowed by former Gov. Bill Owens' administration: Some top officials got job protection too.

In their final annual employment contracts, at least 23 appointed senior managers in the Owens administration got a promise that they could return to other state management positions at the highest-possible salaries for those jobs.

The manager-protection program appears to violate state personnel rules by guaranteeing jobs to senior political appointees.

The contracts, valued at nearly $2.8 million this year, would tie Gov. Bill Ritter's hands in forming his own team by limiting the number of job openings his department heads could fill and by ensuring that Republican political appointees survive in a Democratic administration.

Evan Dreyer, spokesman for Ritter, said the governor's office on Tuesday delivered letters to state departments notifying managers that the Ritter administration will not honor the job-guarantee provision.

"The letters state that we do not believe this provision is consistent with the state law and therefore we will not honor it," Dreyer said.

Dreyer said some of those 22 workers - one of the managers has already retired - could be offered new contracts.

Jeff Wells, former executive director of the Department of Personnel and Administration for Owens, said the contract language was crafted to reassure those senior managers that they wouldn't lose their jobs when a new governor took office.

"I was approached by people who had contracts to come up with something like this," said Wells, who offered it to other department directors for use in contracts with their top managers.

Labor leader rips Owens

A labor-union leader assailed Owens, a Republican, for trying to burrow his appointees into the Ritter administration.

"These contracts are just another example of tricky business as usual," said Jo Romero, president of the Colorado Federation of Public Employees, representing about 1,200 state workers.

Wells denied that the provision was intended to tie Ritter's hands. The contract language was written last spring before it was clear whether Ritter or Republican Bob Beauprez would win the election, Wells said.

Dan Hopkins, former spokesman for Owens, said he did not know details about the contracts.

"It was a policy that originated with the executive director of personnel and administration and it was handled entirely by that department," Hopkins said.

The contracts cover workers who are part of the state's "senior executive service." Those workers get annual contracts that typically provide limited job protection.

In exchange, those managers get higher pay than they would in other management jobs in state government.

Under the usual language in the contracts, senior executive service managers can be "separated from state service" or "appointed to a vacant nonsenior executive service position" when their contracts expire on June 30, the end of the fiscal year.

To do that, the manager's boss - the executive director of the department - must give the manager written notice by May 1.

But last year, some executive directors in the Owens administration inserted a new clause that contradicts existing language in the standard contract.

The new provision states that "regardless of whether notice was timely given," the employee "shall be returned to the traditional" pay plan of the state. Those managers would automatically get their contract salary or the highest-possible pay for their jobs - which no longer include a specified termination date.

In other words, some executive directors appointed by Ritter would not have hiring power over top managers in their departments.

Contracts under review

David Kaye, director of human resources for the Colorado Department of Personnel and Administration, referred questions about the contracts to the department's spokeswoman. Kaye's contract includes the manager-protection clause.

Julie Postlethwait, spokeswoman for the department, said officials are reviewing the contracts.

The new clause was not inserted into every senior executive service contract. There are 55 senior executive service contracts, but only 22 with the job-protection provision, Dreyer said.

Some departments used the new provision more aggressively than others.

In the Colorado Department of Transportation, the contracts of 10 top managers included the provision, while eight officials at the Department of Personnel and Administration had the clause added.

The effort to protect the jobs of selected managers is the latest revelation of patronage by the outgoing Owens administration.

Earlier this month, The Denver Post disclosed that Owens rewarded executive directors who stayed on the job through the end of 2006 with two-week bonus checks.

The 12 executive directors who discontinued their employment with the state at the end of Owens' term received a combined $64,000.

Russell George, who ran the Department of Natural Resources for Owens and is now Ritter's executive director of the Department of Transportation, received a $5,350 bonus.

Dennis Ellis, former executive director of the Department of Public Health and Environment and now a deputy attorney general, was paid a bonus of $5,008.

In total, executive directors in Owens' Cabinet collected $74,358 in bonuses. Including the staff in the governor's office, the state paid bonus payments of $187,298 at the end of Owens' term.

Staff writer Mark P. Couch can be reached at 303-954-1794 or mcouch@denverpost.com.

Denver Post
Owens denies role in job guarantees

By The Denver Post

Article Last Updated: 02/21/2007 01:39:32 PM MST

Former Gov. Bill Owens said today that he was not involved in a decision that promised state jobs to senior managers in his administration after he left office.

As reported earlier by the Denver Post, at least 23 appointed senior managers in the Owens administration signed contracts that said they could return to other state management positions at the highest-possible salaries for those jobs. That contract language appears to violate state personnel rules by guaranteeing jobs to senior political appointees, and Gov. Bill Ritter's administration has said they do not have to honor the job-protection provision.

In a written statement, Owens said that he "was not involved in daily personnel decisions" and "had no contact with the individuals or with anyone involved in making those contract decisions."

Jeff Wells, former executive director of the Department of Personnel and Administration for Owens, told the Post that the contract language was crafted to reassure senior managers that they wouldn't lose their jobs when a new governor took office.

Earlier this month, the Post disclosed that Owens rewarded executive directors who stayed on the job through the end of 2006 with two-week bonus checks.

The complete text of Owens statement reads as follows:

"Colorado has tens of thousands of employees and as governor I was not involved in daily personnel decisions, including contracts for senior executives. In fact, I personally don't know the vast majority of those individuals who have such contracts and the insinuation that I offered them special treatment is simply false The change in the contract was administered by the state's personnel department and the various executive directors and I was not involved in any way in that process. I had no contact with the individuals or with anyone involved in making those contract decisions.

"It is my understanding that those employees with contracts were selected for their jobs through a competitive process and are not political appointees. They typically have long tenure with the state as civil servants, predating the Owens' administration.

"I have always felt that governors and their executive directors should have the maximum flexibility in whom they select for key management positions. I believe it is proper for Governor Ritter and his cabinet to review these contracts and evaluate the performance of each individual."

Denver Post
diane carman | columnist

Owens team knew no bounds in hiring pals

By Diane Carman
Denver Post Staff Columnist

Article Last Updated: 02/21/2007 11:12:34 PM MST

When it comes to feeding at the public trough, few have been as brazen as Bill Owens' cronies.

Then again, few public officials have been as creative as the former governor about devising ways to funnel taxpayers' money to pals without enduring the tedious business of equal employment opportunity rules or public scrutiny.

The sweet job protection program for 23 Owens appointees that was revealed Wednesday by Post reporter Mark Couch is only the latest chapter in an eight-year saga of flagrant disregard for state personnel laws and utter contempt for the civil service system.

So let's climb into the way-back machine and revisit some of the clever schemes used by Owens to circumvent long-established hiring rules during his two terms in office.

The old "temporary hire" switcheroo was an Owens administration favorite.

When he took office, only about 150 state jobs were outside the civil service system, which requires that openings be advertised and that applicants pass tests and meet specified requirements for education and experience.

Owens wanted more.

So his Cabinet appointees went to work giving Owens loyalists a wide range of six-month appointments.

This was done because temporary jobs are exempt from the civil service rules - precisely because they are supposed to be temporary.

Then after six months in the Owens administration, voila!, the jobs became permanent.

The hiring of Michael McArdle, a former lobbyist for the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry, was one example. He was given a job as "labor standards director" in the Labor Department. After six months, he was transferred to a permanent job requiring an entirely different skill set: He was named director of public relations for the Labor Department.

This came as a surprise to Rosemary Marshall, for 10 years the director of public relations for the Labor Department, who was still doing that job at the time.

Paul Farley also slipped into full-time employment with the state through the temporary job route.

In 1999, he got a six-month post with the Public Utilities Commission. Then, even though he didn't have the minimum two years' experience in utilities regulation stipulated for the job, he was named to a permanent position with the PUC overseeing administrative law judges.

Another neat trick by the Owens gang was the old "lateral transfer" maneuver. This is how Jeff Wells ended up on the state gravy train.

Pay attention now, because this is like trying to follow the pea in a shell game.

Wells, a lawyer and former Senate majority leader, was working part time as a $41,130-a-year state administrative law judge in the Personnel Department in 1999 when then-labor director Vickie Armstrong was looking for a deputy.

Instead of following civil service rules, Armstrong simply transferred Wells into the $82,740-a-year position without advertising the job or subjecting him to the dreary process of competing with other qualified applicants.

Three months later, Armstrong reclassified the job, bumping his salary up 13 percent. Within 17 months of being hired, Wells' salary had jumped a whopping 162 percent.

Later, it was the team of Wells and Farley who implemented a raft of ingenious personnel rules that abolished several civil service positions and allowed the hiring of temporary workers for indefinite assignments. This was accomplished with Owens' approval in defiance of the will of voters who overwhelmingly rejected the proposed changes to the civil service system in 2004.

When the legislature held a hearing to investigate, Farley showed up to say the new personnel rules would be abandoned.

Wells failed to appear.

To no one's surprise, Wells was among the chosen ones who got a bonus - $5,400 in his case - at the end of the reign of the imperial governor.

Diane Carman's column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-954-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.

Denver Post
denver & the west

Owens: Unaware of jobs protection

BACKGROUND | At least 23 senior Owens officials had job-guarantee clauses in their contracts, a breach of state law.

By Mark P. Couch
Denver Post Staff Writer

Article Last Updated: 02/22/2007 01:50:43 AM MST

Former Gov. Bill Owens said Wednesday that he was unaware that top officials in his administration had job-protection clauses in their contracts.

The contracts of at least 23 top officials were revised last year to include a provision that guaranteed they would be able to keep state jobs.

Owens said the decision to alter the contracts - in violation of state law and personnel rules - was made by Jeff Wells, his executive director of personnel and administration.

"Had we known how this would be perceived, my administration certainly would have vetted it and might have reached a different conclusion," Owens said in a telephone interview.

The annual contracts for "senior executive service" managers - typically the top deputies at state departments - provide for higher salaries than other state management positions. In exchange, the managers give up some job- protection rights they would otherwise get as state workers.

The typical contracts give department executive directors the power to notify those managers in writing that their jobs will be terminated at the end of the fiscal year.

Wells inserted a new provision in the contracts of eight managers in his department that invalidated that clause and guaranteed them jobs. He offered that language to other executive directors in the Owens administration and at least four other department heads used it.

The language of the individual contracts was beneath the governor's level of review, Owens said.

Still, Owens praised his executive director of personnel.

"I think Jeff Wells did an outstanding job running the department," said Owens, a Republican.

The administration of Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter on Wednesday notified the managers whose contracts were changed that the provision is "inconsistent with Colorado law" and would not be honored.

"The objectionable clause improperly divests the executive director of discretion in the renewal process, while at the same time giving you the benefit of a higher salary while maintaining the rights and protections of the state personnel system," wrote Richard Gonzales, executive director of the Department of Personnel and Administration, in a letter to one of the managers.

Evan Dreyer, spokesman for Ritter, said that more than 30 contracts may have included the language.

The disclosure of the contract provisions by The Denver Post on Tuesday prompted Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald, D-Jefferson County, to accuse Wells of rewriting contracts to let political appointees "burrow in" to top state government jobs.

"It's a final slap in the face from the Owens administration to the state employees," Fitz- Gerald said.

Owens dismissed Fitz-Gerald's criticism. "In all my years working with Joan Fitz-Gerald, I have rarely known her to say a kind thing about me or my administration," he said.

Earlier in the day, Owens released a statement that tacitly endorsed Ritter's effort to invalidate the Wells provision in the contracts.

"I have always felt that governors and their executive directors should have the maximum flexibility in whom they select for key management positions," Owens said early Wednesday in a written statement.

"I believe it is proper for Governor Ritter and his Cabinet to review these contracts and evaluate the performance of each individual," Owens said.

Staff writer Mark P. Couch can be reached at 303-954-1794 or mcouch@denverpost.com.