National Roundup

Alaska
State settles lawsuit that alleged wrongful firing for $75,000
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A former assistant public advocate for the state will receive $75,000 as part of a settlement in a case she brought against Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a former chief of staff and the state that alleged wrongful firing.

Kelly Parker agreed to drop her lawsuit as part of the agreement, signed last month, the Anchorage Daily News reported Thursday. The agreement says nothing in it should be deemed an admission of liability by the state.

The case was one of three filed after the Dunleavy administration, as part of its 2018 transition into office, asked at-will employees to submit resignation letters and reapply for their jobs. Parker and others alleged it amounted to a loyalty pledge.

Attorneys for the state Department of Law, in court filings, disputed Parker's description.

The administration, at the time of the resignation requests, said it was following prior precedent.

Parker, through an attorney, declined the news outlet's interview request but released a statement stating in part that Parker brought the case because she believes the state should not be able to act in a way in which it decides who represents clients on both sides of court cases.

Mississippi
Federal attorneys: State must expand mental services
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Department of Justice says a federal judge should order Mississippi to expand community-based mental health services.

Department attorneys filed documents with an expansion plan as part of the long-running litigation between the federal government and the Mississippi Department of Mental Health, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reported.

The Justice Department wants U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves to appoint an external monitor to ensure Mississippi complies with court-ordered remediation.

"The Proposed Remedial Plan provides for a Court-appointed Monitor both because of the complexity of the issues in this case and because of the State's decade-long failure to remedy widely acknowledged deficiencies in its adult mental health system," federal attorneys wrote in the May 21 filing.

The federal government issued a letter  in 2011 saying Mississippi had done too little to provide mental health services in places other than mental hospitals. The Justice Department sued the state in 2016. After a 2019 trial, Reeves ruled  Mississippi "operates a system that unlawfully discriminates against persons with serious mental illness."

Federal attorneys say Mississippi relies too much on state-run hospitals instead of letting people receive mental health treatment in their own communities. The Justice Department argues that when patients go to state hospitals, they often remain for long periods and become recurring patients.

"At the Mississippi State Hospital continuing care unit, for example, the average length of stay was around 4.5 years," the Justice Department plan reads. "Approximately 1,200 people who were admitted to the State Hospitals between 2015 and 2017 stayed longer than two months. During the same period, over 700 adults with serious mental illness experienced two or more State Hospital admissions."

Reeves had ordered the state and the Justice Department to each submit a remediation plan for mental health services. The state argued  in court papers April 30 that it has made sufficient improvements since 2019.

"The Court should therefore not issue sweeping relief that invades the inner, day-to-day workings of State government," state attorneys wrote.

Federal attorneys said during the trial that mentally ill people were being held in jails because crisis teams didn't respond. They said people had been forced to live far from their families because mental health services weren't available in their hometowns. They also said people made repeat trips to Mississippi mental hospitals because there was no effective planning for them to make a transition to community services, and the most intensive kinds of services weren't being made available.

In early 2020, the judge named an expert with 40 years' experience as a special master to oversee discussions about improving Mississippi's system.


New Mexico
Former pension boss sues state over pay discrimination
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The former head of New Mexico's pension system for educators has accused Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and others of denying her equal pay.

Jan Goodwin filed a lawsuit in federal court Thursday, saying she was forced to leave her position at the Educational Retirement Board earlier this year because of longstanding pay inequity issues. The lawsuit alleges that the Lujan Grisham administration denied equal pay to Goodwin in violation of the state's Fair Pay for Women Act.

Goodwin, a 61-year-old white woman, claimed institutional and systemic gender, age and race discrimination. According to the complaint, she was paid about $100,000 less than her male counterpart at the New Mexico State Investment Council.

The governor's office contends the claim is baseless and that Goodwin's salary was set prior to Lujan Grisham taking office.

Goodwin spent almost 13 years as executive director of the Educational Retirement Board. She was earning just over $183,000 annually before she resigned this year and took a job leading the New Hampshire retirement system that pays her $235,000 per year.

The lawsuit claimed Goodwin was more qualified than State Investment Officer Steve Moise, who gets nearly $276,000 annually. It also claimed that Goodwin "consistently produced better results for the educational employees of the state of New Mexico than had Mr. Moise, under the scrutiny of any reasonable comparative analysis."

The lawsuit alleged that the pay disparity went back more than a decade.

Upon Goodwin's appointment as executive director, the lawsuit said, she made about $13,000 a year less than her male counterpart at the New Mexico Public Employees Retirement Association — a disparity that was eventually addressed.

Moise's hiring in April 2010 created what the lawsuit described as an "enormous, unconscionable and obviously illegal disparity" as Goodwin's salary remained the same even though the two jobs required equal skill, effort and responsibility.

The lawsuit alleged that Moise did not have the professional experience required by state statute of at least five years of investment and executive experience to qualify for the job.

Moises, who was hired during Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson's tenure, declined to comment.