ANTHONY HARDIE

December 19, 2009

The Honorable Bob Turner

P.O. Box 8953
State Capitol
Madison, WI 53708

Dear Representative Turner,

As WDVA's former Executive Assistant from 2003 until earlier this year under Secretaries
Boland and Scocos and Acting Secretaries Perelman, Kloster, and Black, like you I have
noted with great concern the recent news stories about the massive rate increases proposed by
WDVA for the Wisconsin Veterans Home at Union Grove. As you may know, my departure
was an unanticipated, frustrating, very early service-connected medical retirement. I could not
agree more with your characterization of these rate increases, in your December 18th letter
to WDVA, as "exorbitant" and unfair, and if I were still at WDVA, I would continue
to strenuously give that same advice to the Secretary.

However, the lack of transparency you cite in your letter goes much deeper than the top
appointed leadership of the agency, and unless real change is made within and outside the
agency, then removing Secretary Scocos for the Board’s apparent purpose of creating
change was utterly irrelevant. After reading this letter, I hope you'll have a better sense of what
is really at the root of these challenges and a sense of the actions that may be needed to ensure
that what is now clearly broken at WDVA gets fixed.

When I first started at WDVA in May 2003, I was told presciently by one old, senior civil
servant,"You appointees come and go. They [the bureaucrats] were here long before you got
here, and they'll be here long after you're gone."

Indeed, during my tenure, a major struggle for the appointees was often against a small cadre of
insulated senior bureaucrats who seemed to be mainly focused on maintaining their own little
fiefdoms of perceived power. Yet, when bad decisions were quietly made by them, they were
nowhere to be found when it came to accountability, leaving that to lay smoking at the feet of the
publicly accountable appointees. The expressed or implied will of the people and the needs of
the veterans they're supposed to be serving never seemed to be even a small part
of their formulations. To be clear, this is just a small, albeit highly powerful minority within
WDVA, and in my experience, the vast majority of WDVA's employees truly seemed intent on
doing an excellent job and to derive great satisfaction from serving our state's veterans.

As a prime example, shortly before my unanticipated departure, during the only Homes rate
increase in which I was asked to be directly involved, WDVA Homes Administrator Tom
Rhatican and I together fought hard to make sure that then Acting Secretary Ken Black made the
only right decision when it came to rate increases at the Union Grove Veterans Home. Half of
that advice, and the ultimate decision, was to have a significantly smaller rate increase than the
50 or 60-plus percent one-time residential rate increases demanded at the time by WDVA budget

HOME : 1722 N. SHERM AN AVE . • M ADISON, WI 53704-3986

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Anthony D. Hardie - December 19, 2009 Page 2 of 3

director Abrahamsen and WDVA chief legal counsel Jimmy Stewart. It was only with major
struggle that Black listened to us rather than to Stewart and Abrahamsen, which even involved
me calling John Scocos in Iraq to ask him to weigh in directly with Black to direct him to finally
decide against the massive, obviously publicly unsupportable rate increase. The current 37
percent increase is likely the remainder of that even more massive increase proposed when I was
still with WDVA.

In a highly charged phone call with Stewart at that time, during the course of which he
repeatedly screamed at me (including the unconscionable assertion for a salaried, $120,000-plus
public lawyer, "I am not your lawyer after 5 p.m.!"), he initially "advised" that following my
recommended course of action -- a less-than-full rate increase for Union Grove -- would
constitute "malfeasance in office" if we didn't implicitly follow his flawed legal opinions. After
taking under consideration his patently bad counsel, Tom and I both continued to hold our
ground, having a much deeper and longer acquaintance with the recently revised applicable
statutes than Stewart. Stewart’s advice to Black was, however, backed up by budget director Ken
Abrahamsen, who, in my experience, regularly advocated one position as the only possible
course of action, only to take the opposite position just days later with little or no explanation
for his total flip-flop. (As a sidebar, I noted with interest Abrahamsen's assertion in the recent
DOJ investigative report that he is only responsible for "salary projections" -- again disavowing
all responsibility for budget matters that clearly ought to be fully within the purview of a budget
director.)

Tom and I were only partially successful in our advocacy on these issues. Based on our longer
experience -- including my service representing WDVA on the legislative committee that
recodified the veterans affairs chapter of the state statutes -- we knew that the intent of the
Legislature is and has always been that the two Homes are considered as one entity for the
purposes of funding and residential rates, and that was the other half of our advice. In our
discussions that I note above, the newly appointed Stewart, without the background and
experience of his predecessor, along with Abrahamsen, advocated differently, and I find it deeply
disappointing that WDVA's leadership has apparently fallen into following their atrocious advice
and demands--thereby hurting countless current and prospective Union Grove Home resident
veterans, as you so appropriately note in your December 18th letter.

Stewart and Abrahamsen eventually gave in, though clearly with these new, exorbitant rate
increases, the battle was to be fought again another day. In fact, the decisions to make such
massive rate increases and to charge different rates at the Homes -- which have both been
consistently advocated inside the agency by Stewart and Abrahamsen -- not only flies in the face
of state Board member concerns and obvious public policy common sense, but the former
was also among the reasons cited by upset Board members when recently terminating John
Scocos.

Clearly, there are some entrenched, very highly paid bureaucrats within WDVA that remain
so out of touch with Wisconsin veterans and the Wisconsin people that they should be
immediately removed, as I have been privately advising for a long time (which may of course be
easier said than done). I am deeply concerned that WDVA leadership now has no alternative
senior advice besides theirs, which, during my tenure, was frequently, deeply flawed. I am also
Anthony D. Hardie - December 19, 2009 Page 3 of 3

deeply concerned that some at WDVA still do not seem to understand that if flawed or
outdated laws or regulations stand in the way of good public policy, then it should be their public
duty to proactively seek legislative or other legal action to fix those flaws as we did during my
tenure at WDVA, rather than just sit idly by and allow veterans to be harmed.

I believe that the Legislature, in consultation with the Board, should take this opportunity to
shine a public spotlight at the roots of this and other of WDVA's several remaining problems,
which I believe lie with a handful of top-level, entrenched civil service bureaucrats as well
as with structure, staffing, and accountability within the agency. With regards to this specific
issue, Legislation may well be required that clearly spells out to WDVA's handful of
entrenched senior civil service bureaucrats that the Wisconsin Veterans Homes continue to
be considered by the people of Wisconsin to be a single entity, as noted in your
letter, and should therefore share cost saving, overruns, and member (resident) rates. The
effect would be to immediately ameliorate the current rate-setting gridlock at WDVA, which is
clearly set to hurt current and prospective members (residents) of the Wisconsin Veterans Home
at Union Grove.

I have copied the members of the Board on this letter, along with other key legislative officials
with whom I worked closely, in the hopes of starting a productive dialogue in the Legislature on
this issue, to the benefit of our veterans. I remain a lifelong veterans advocate and an
unwavering friend of WVDA and the veterans it is charged with serving, and in spite of my ill
health, I would be happy to try to respond to any questions any may have, preferably by email or
phone.

Thank you for your continued service to our state and for your unrelenting, conscientious
leadership on behalf of our state's veterans.

With utmost sincerity,

Anthony Hardie

Cc: Board of Veterans Affairs

WDVA Sec. Ken Black
Rep. Steve Hilgenberg
Rep. Kevin Petersen
Sen. Jim Sullivan
Sen. Joe Leibham
Sen. John Lehman
Bob Nelson
Dick Sweet
Pam Shannon
Staff