Bolejack: The Buck Stops At Gullans' Desk

Let's see, on Friday after she and her chief deputy were fired by the Board of Trustees of the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute for assorted improprieties involving the misuse of taxpayers dollars, the ousted executive director, Heather Bolejack, claimed she was targeted because she is black during a newspaper interview. Today, Bolejack was singing a different tune during a radio station interview. Displaying no contrition for her misconduct in violating agency rules to award a $417,000 grant to a family friend, Bolejack defended her honor and blamed everything on her chief deputy, Katalina Gullans, who she supervised before both were fired on Friday. The AP reports:

Bolejack said on an Indianapolis radio talk show that it seemed the problems rested with Katalina Gullans, who also was fired Friday as the agency's deputy director.

"I am willing to be held accountable for what appears to me now to be actions of one of my subordinates," she told radio station WTLC-AM. "I'm willing if that's the standard. The public slaying in such a personal fashion is what's difficult to take" . . .

"I just want to be clear about what the truth is. And I want to be clear that I did not do anything wrong by my hand."

If Bolejack is in complete denial that she did anything improper, she is clearly living in another world. She even attacks the administration for firing her through her attorney. As an attorney, Bolejack should understand that it would have been improper and unethical for the administration to speak directly to her after she hired an attorney. But blaming everything on a subordinate is reprehensible. Her attorney should do her job and tell her client to keep quiet. She's only making matters worse for herself.

UPDATE: Undermining Bolejack's attempt to blame Gullans for her problems is a report in this morning's Star, which indicates Gullans raised concerns about the McKenna grant in an e-mail to another employee before it was awarded. "In the e-mail released Monday and dated August 2005, Gullans wrote to another staff member that she had "major concerns" about the grant to McKenna. 'Outside of me writing the grant . . . which I feel I almost will need to do . . . it is still very weak in the project description as to what they will actually be doing,' Gullans wrote. She also pointed out the Criminal Justice Institute initiated the grant through a meeting Bolejack called." The story also indicates that IG investigators twice met with Bolejack to give her the opportunity to explain her actions prior to Friday's meeting. Yesterday, she complained that she wasn't given the opportunity by the Daniels' administration to explain herself.