A state representative who’s running for governor says there should be a deeper investigation of the scandal involving a central Iowa job training program where top managers were pulling in six-figure incomes. Ed Fallon says the legislative panel that’s investigating the Central Iowa Employment and Training Consortium or CIETC should look more closely at operations of Iowa Workforce Development, the state agency that oversees CIETC.

“I’d like to see the Legislative Oversight Committee broaden that investigation to go all the way back to the 1980s,” Fallon says. “I think they will find a lot more waste, a lot more duplication.” Fallon says his first run-in with the Iowa Workforce Development agency came over a decade ago when he discovered a bit of chicanery by the woman who was recently fired as C-E-O of CIETC.

“I was on to Ramona Cunningham back in 1994 when I caught her wasting $330,000 a year by duplicating a service in that program,” Fallon says. “We were able to get that fixed. We were able to stop that waste.” Fallon says Iowa Workforce Development employees were being paid to do exactly the same thing workers in Cunningham’s agency were doing — take applications from central Iowans who wanted job training assistance.

Fallon says if he’s elected governor, he’ll try to end that kind of waste. “I’d appoint heads of every agency who are committed to weeding out any corruption or mismanagement or duplication in their agency,” Fallon says. Fallon says this scandal makes state government “look sloppy.” Fallon made his comments on Iowa Public Television.