The Iowa Workforce Development agency secretary who was caught tossing documents in a dumpster a few hours after her boss had been asked to resign has made a public statement about the episode.
Workforce Development secretary Laurie Rieck was asked to appear before the Legislative Oversight Committee but delivered a written statement to the panel instead. Rieck told the committee that at no time had she worked for or been involved with CIETC, the central Iowa job training agency at the center of a pay scandal.
Rieck says she had worked late the night her boss was asked to resign, then couldn’t sleep so she went back into the office at about 4:30 a.m. to comb through old files.
She says Jane Barto, her former boss, did not direct her to toss things in the dumpster, and adds that if CIETC-related items were found by the state agents who seized the dumpster, she was “unaware” of the presence of those documents in the dumpster and had placed some CIETC materials on her desk and did not toss those records.