Public official exaggerates his duty to engineer major pay raise from struggling public agency

BOARDMAN ­ – A powerful state legislator who profits from work for public bodies recently arranged a 55 percent salary increase from a financially struggling agency, according to public records obtained by the Enterprise.

State Rep. Greg Smith, R-Heppner, serves as the paid executive director of the Columbia Development Authority. Based in Boardman, the authority is turning a former Army base in eastern Oregon into industrial property.

Some directors now feel Smith misled the CDA board to get the raise. One director unsuccessfully sought a special board meeting on the matter.

An investigation by the Enterprise showed that Smith relied on the board’s approval of a federal grant to not only raise his pay by $66,000 a year but to back date the effect. The board had months earlier tabled consideration of a raise, one director reported.

The raise came after Smith in June gave the board a 22-page grant application that referred to compensation but listed only Smith’s new salary.

Two of the five board members said they weren’t aware their vote for the federal grant meant a raise for Smith. No pay increase was discussed by the board ahead of the vote in June, they said.

Kim Puzey, chair of the CDA Board, acknowledged the document didn’t indicate for board members what change in pay was proposed for Smith.

“I don’t know how they would know that,” Puzey said. “You’d have to have some history.”

But Smith relied on the June grant vote to trigger a change in his pay from $129,000 to $195,000, according to CDA documents.

Smith also advised back dating the raise, an action Puzey said he didn’t know about.

Three directors on the CDA board said they too weren’t aware that Smith got the retroactive pay while a fourth said that fact was in the paperwork given the board. One director said he would have opposed such retroactive pay had it been separately brought to a board vote.

One director, Jeff Wenholz, a Morrow County commissioner, said “I don’t remember” if the board voted earlier on a pay raise while three other directors confirmed that they had not.

That’s not what Smith’s team told the federal government.

In early January, his staff drafted a grant for federal money to cover the majority of the CDA’s yearly expenses. The team sent the federal government a general listing of expenses for the year ahead. The documentation falsely stated that the board had raised Smith’s pay. That lie stayed in documentation when the grant was formally submitted months later.

Smith didn’t respond to interview requests and he has a practice of not addressing written questions from the Enterprise.  He also didn’t respond to 33 excerpts of this story sent before publication for him to review for accuracy.

On Monday, Sept. 9, Smith instead sent a six-paragraph statement from the board chair discussing the salary increase in general terms. There was no indication the statement had the backing of the full board.

Puzey said in two places, “This statement must be printed in its entirety.”

Government agencies have no authority to compel publication of such statements.

“My work hours were 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  I feel I have more than honored this agreement and have always made myself available.”

–Greg Smith, executive director, Columbia Development Authority

How much time Smith puts in for his salary isn’t clear.

Through public records requests to the CDA, the Enterprise obtained Smith’s time slips and his calendar.

On those time slips that Smith signed, he reported eight hours of work every day at the CDA.

On Feb. 8, for instance, he listed eight hours of work for the authority. His CDA calendar for the day is blank.

That day, he was in Salem, at work at the Oregon Legislature. Among other activities at the Capitol that day, Smith’s Facebook page showed that as a legislator he met with staff and students from one of his private clients, Eastern Oregon University. Using his state email account, he later that day sent them photos of the visit.

On April 9, he reported eight hours of work. His CDA calendar for the day showed one meeting.

But another calendar he maintains obtained by the Enterprise showed that he was in Eugene all that day. He was there in one of his other work roles – director of La Grande’s Small Business Development Center. “I was in attendance for the SBDC directors conference,” Smith reported to a supervisor in an email he signed in his development center capacity.

On May 2, he reported eight hours of work for the authority. His CDA calendar for that day is blank, as it is for every day that week.

His Facebook page contained photographs of Smith 1,200 miles away in Arizona in his role as a state legislator. “This week, my Republican colleagues and I toured the US border wall constructed by President Donald Trump in Yuma, Arizona. I learned so much,” he wrote in his post.

And Smith has other demands on his time that earn him money besides his CDA job.

His company, for instance, operates the Small Business Development Center 100 miles from Boardman at Eastern Oregon University. Smith is a senior lead adviser and until April was its director.

He is an “executive adviser” for the Business Resource Center that his company is under contract to run for Umatilla Electric Coop in Hermiston.

He also is the economic development director for Harney County, operating an office about 250 miles from Boardman. Last December, he wrote the chair of the CDA board that he intended to “let my Harney County Economic Development contract expire and redirect that energy to the board.”

For years, Smith also was the economic development director for Malheur County, maintaining an Ontario office 200 miles away from Boardman. In 2023, he quit the last of his work in the county that had paid his private company $180,000 year.

Earlier this year, Smith reported to state ethics officials that his annual household income for 2023 exceeded $1 million.

A recent visit to the CDA headquarters in Boardman found no indication that Smith worked there as a highly-paid executive. The largest individual office, with a sweeping view of the Columbia River and an ornate book case, is used by Smith’s administrative assistant, according to Zoom recordings and certificates in her name in the book case.

The only other desk in the office, set in the front foyer, carried the only sign of Smith – a handful of his executive director business cards in a plastic holder. Nothing indicated a desk in regular use. There were no papers, no photographs.

The issue of Smith’s actual time at work came up in an executive session of the CDA board last December. Such sessions are closed to the public, but Smith himself later disclosed in a letter that there had been a question about whether he was part time.

“This could not be more misunderstood,” Smith wrote in a Jan. 15 letter. “My work hours were 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  I feel I have more than honored this agreement and have always made myself available.”

Puzey, the CDA board chair, said Smith can be hard to reach.

THE AUTHORITY

An Army ammunition supply depot opened in 1941 on acreage west of Hermiston. In 1962, some of the nation’s most lethal chemical weapons were moved to what became the Umatilla Chemical Depot. The munitions were later destroyed and the Army deactivated the depot in 2012.

The plan was to turn over the property for local use, including to spur economic development.

To advance that task, five organizations came together in 2010. That included the ports of Morrow and Umatilla, the counties of Morrow and Umatilla and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla India Reservation.

They formed what is now called the Columbia Development Authority. The public body is governed by a board with an agent from each of the partners.

Smith came on as executive director in 2015. He had once worked for the Port of Morrow and has been a state legislator since 2001.

Many public agencies typically review the performance of top executives each year. That didn’t happen at the CDA and Puzey said “I don’t have an answer” for why that was so.

That changed in late 2023, when Smith set in motion events to raise his $129,000 salary.

Records obtained from the CDA showed that Smith on Dec. 8, 2023, sent Puzey a motion to present to the CDA board for a vote to increase Smith’s salary. Puzey, executive director of the Port of Umatilla, couldn’t recall if he asked Smith to prepare the motion but said the wording and research were Smith’s.

“Director Smith has many professional responsibilities that will need to be overseen, addressed and implemented in the future,” the motion said.

It said the board should as much as double Smith’s pay – a range between $268,000 to $304,000.

Puzey said the range was “commensurate” with what federal officials advise for such positions. He said Smith “got a recommendation from the federal government.”

The CDA produced no record showing a federal official recommending such pay.

READ IT: Motion to increase pay

There were two unusual aspects to the motion Smith drafted for Puzey.

He compared his pay to that of the executive director of a Colorado entity also involved with a former military base. Smith did not share the duties, budgets or employees under supervision to compare himself to the Colorado official.

Instead, he calculated a pay comparison based on one factor – the amount of property each man managed.

Using that formula, he said the Colorado man was getting $16 per acre while Smith was getting $6.50.

The motion said that Smith managed 19,000 acres.

“In the interest of true pay equity, Director Smith would need to be compensated $304,000,” the motion said.

But Smith exaggerated the land under the CDA’s control.

He apparently counted 7,500 acres of the old depot that already had been given by the Army to the Oregon National Guard. The CDA has no responsibility for that land.

And last March, the Army turned over just 9,511 acres to the CDA.

Even that is shrinking as the Umatilla tribes will soon take over 4,019 acres.

Puzey said he knew of no circumstance where a public official is paid based solely on the acreage they manage.

Officials at the state Department of Administrative Services, which handles the state’s largest personnel service, reported that no employee in the state is so paid.

Smith also listed for Puzey to share with the board eight reasons – “justifications” he called them – for boosting his pay.

The motion said that “Director Smith has secured state funding” for “transportation and infrastructure” at the military base.

But that didn’t happen from Smith’s work as executive director.

He used his role as a legislator to arrange $7 million in funding for the CDA in 2017. He publicly took credit as a legislator for doing so.

The motion also gave Smith credit as executive director because he “advocated for legislative change” to allow the CDA to get access to certain state grants and loans.

Smith obtained that legislation not as executive director but again in his duty as a state legislator. He was the chief sponsor in 2021 of House Bill 3307, which became law.

Speaking to the CDA board at that time, Smith didn’t claim he achieved this as executive director as he now was doing in his bid for a salary increase.

According to board minutes from 2021, “Mr. Smith stated he is going to share while wearing his legislative hat, that he has proposed a bill” to make it “easier” for the CDA to get state funds.

Records show Smith expected the board to consider the salary issue at the board meeting of Dec. 11, 2023.

He emailed the motion to the four other board members ­– “as requested by the chair.”

Smith also that day sent a self-evaluation to Puzey, the first he’d done in his time at the CDA, based on its records.

He told the chair that the six-page Executive Director Assessment “is derived from an executive director template for nonprofit organizations I found on the internet.”

He told Puzey that he forwarded a copy to Lisa Mittelsdorf, executive director of the Port of Morrow and then a CDA board member. Smith identified Mittelsdorf as the chair’s “appointee to the Executive Director Assessment Committee.”

Mittelsdorf initially said she didn’t know who else was on the committee. She subsequently clarified that there was one phone call with Puzey and Smith to discuss staff wages and that this apparently constituted the Executive Director Assessment Committee.

In the evaluation, Smith generally rated himself high. He conceded that “I have failed to create a unified direction for the board.”

But he also complained that “the board has experienced multiple board membership changes resulting in significant shifts in leadership direction.”

READ IT: Executive director assessment

On Dec. 11, the board convened and the topic of evaluating Smith’s performance was moved from the open part of the meeting to behind closed doors. Oregon law allows such evaluations to be done in executive sessions, where the public is excluded.

Puzey and Mittelsdorf attended. Other board members participating were Morrow County Commissioner Jeff Wenholz, Umatilla County Commissioner John Shafer, and Don Sampson, then representing the tribal confederation.

Shafer said the board tabled action on a raise for Smith.

Smith himself revealed some of what went on behind closed doors, writing in a Jan. 15 letter that “I came before the board requesting a discussion of Columbia Development Authority salary adjustments.” He said that “this conversation stalled.”

He said there was a question about hiring a “compensation consultant” and “also creating a new compensation review policy.”

“We were just talking in general terms about a compensation package,” Puzey confirmed.

But the law providing for closed door discussions allowed only a review of Smith’s performance. Based on Smith’s letter, the board strayed beyond that into topics that should have been handled in public session.

According to the Oregon Attorney General’s Office manual on public meetings, the law “does not allow discussion of an officer’s salary to be conducted in executive session in connection with the job performance evaluation of that officer.”

Puzey said he thought the discussion was lawful, but couldn’t cite his basis.

Smith again pressed Puzey to advance his pay raise.

“I respectfully request you call for a motion” before the board to set his pay now at $238,000, he wrote on Jan. 15, 2024. That would have been a raise of more than $100,000.

READ IT: Greg Smith’s salary comparisons

Smith took another stab at justifying the increase, this time citing “local market forces” and the pay for “similar executive positions.”

Smith’s letter listed seven positions, providing only the agency, the position and the salary. There was no other information about duties or experience. State officials said there is no standard to use such comparatives in a compensation study as Smith did.

The Enterprise sought out more information about those positions to compare to Smith’s work managing two employees and a budget of about $1 million.

Smith had cited the general manager of the Port of Coos Bay. Port officials reported the agency has 47 employees and lists an annual budget of about $82 million.

Smith cited the executive director of the Port of Pasco. Port officials reported the agency has 46 employees and a budget of $106 million.

Smith cited the chief operations officer at the Port of Morrow. Port officials reported the agency has about 145 employees and a budget of $473 million.

Despite Smith’s urging, Puzey said he never advanced the pay motion at any subsequent board meeting.

THE GRANT

Smith’s hope for a pay raise wasn’t entirely dead.

In January, the CDA staff went to work seeking federal approval of a new grant. The board in 2022 directed that it approve any grant request before it was sent on.

The primary work of drafting the new application fell to Debbie Pedro, the CDA’s administrative assistant and director of economic development coordination. She was joined in the effort by Emily Collins, the CDA’s part-time project coordinator.

In an email obtained by the Enterprise, Pedro wrote on Jan. 23 that she was sending the grant application on to the federal government.

“I know we still need board approval on the wage increases,” she wrote, budgeting the $238,000 salary that Smith had been unsuccessful in getting Puzey to advance.

She also added in a new raise for herself, taking her salary from $83,000 to $130,000.

The documentation portrayed a board all but eager to give Smith and Pedro more money.

READ IT: CDA budget justification

“Compensation packages have been approved by the Columbia Development Board of Directors,” the budget justification said.

“Requested compensation reflects a significant increase which would be board approved salary adjustment,” it said in another. That would later be revised: “Requested compensation reflects a significant board-approved increase” beginning on April 1, 2024.

The form also said the CDA board is “in agreement that compensation for the two top employees through research of other like positions in the Pacific Northwest is approved.”

“I don’t know what to tell you” if statements to the federal government weren’t true. “I don’t have any sense we misrepresented anything.”

–Kim Puzey, CDA chair

The CDA could provide no record of any such board approval or agreement prior to the submission to the federal government.

Puzey said “I don’t know what to tell you” if statements to the federal government weren’t true. “I don’t have any sense we misrepresented anything.”

Shafer said that “to his knowledge,” it was “not true” that the board had approved pay raises.

“Obviously, this raises a significant amount of concern to me,” he said.

The Enterprise sent emails to Pedro and Collins with questions about why the documentation falsely reported board approval. They were asked if they were aware that false statements in the circumstance could be a federal crime. Neither responded.

A federal official reviewing CDA’s bid for money said overall the grant request was reasonable. However, the CDA wasn’t going to get all the money it asked for.

“The primary concern is the excessive increase in personnel salaries,” wrote Tim Robert, a federal project manager. He later wrote, “The CEO salary for our grants is capped at $195K.”

Puzey, who believed Smith deserved the pay raise, said he was never told the proposed salary was judged “excessive” or that there was a limit.

The CDA staff reworked the grant, reducing the pay listed for Smith from $238,000 to the $195,000. They made other modifications after the federal government questioned other portions of the application.

Meantime, the partnership among the five CDA members was fracturing in a dispute over who was going to get what portions of the former military base. Umatilla County felt cut out of prime industrial land as did the tribal confederation.

Traditionally, the five partners shared equally in covering costs not paid for by the federal government. But the two counties haven’t paid their share in months and the tribes didn’t pay the most recent assessment.

This created more financial strain for the CDA.

Smith lamented the sorry financial condition of his agency, saying he wasn’t sure how to cover some costs.

Puzey said recently that he now expected the two ports would have to cover the share – about $150,000 under the current budget – that had been expected from the other partners.

Money was still an issue in June when Smith pressed the board to act on the federal grant. Smith told the board its approval was months late, adding urgency to act. He didn’t flag the pay raises, board members said.

Under Smith’s plan, the partners together would have to chip in an extra $58,000 more to cover Smith’s raise than they had been budgeted to contribute the year before, CDA documents show. The new assessment wouldn’t have been apparent to board members unless they dug out old budget documents.

“I can’t recall if the increase in the cost share was provided,” Wenholz said.

“What we just did is wrong and what we were told is wrong.”

–Kelly Doherty, CDA board member

By unanimous vote on June 25, the board approved the grant. The formal vote was needed for the federal government to proceed with the funding. The board now included two new members, Kelly Doherty, representing the Port of Morrow, and J.D. Tovey, representing the Umatilla tribes. Puzey, Shafer and Wenholz also voted for it.

Puzey said in his statement issued Sept. 9, “The Columbia Development Authority Board unanimously accepted its 2024-2025 Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation grant award, which included staff pay raises.”

He said Smith hadn’t previously received a merit raise.

Smith’s pay raise “is right there in the grant document,” Wenholz said, referring to language indicating the board had already approved the increase. “I didn’t know the percentage increase.”

Doherty was relatively new to the board and had spotted in the paperwork the references to board approval.

“I was under the understanding that the wage increase had already been approved” at previous meetings, Doherty said.

After the meeting, she went back through board records and could find no such approval, concluding the statements to the federal government were “false.”

Doherty approached Puzey, seeking a special board meeting but none was scheduled.

“What we just did is wrong and what we were told is wrong,” Doherty said. “I won’t condone it.”

She said Smith tried to soothe her.

“He kept repeating that I just didn’t understand,” Doherty said.

Just a day after the board vote on the grant, Smith advised those who process payroll to change the pay.

“The new wage structure should be retroactive to April 1, 2024,” he wrote.

“I did not know that,” Shafer said when questioned about the back pay.

“This is the first I have heard that any pay increase was retroactive,” Tovey said.

The Port of Morrow reported that Smith collected $14,577.20 in retroactive pay.

Contact Editor Les Zaitz: [email protected].

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