Tom Warne Report, 31 August 2012
The first female director of the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD), Pam Lowe, has settled with the agency in a wrongful firing lawsuit for $750,000, while maintaining she had been willing to take less if it settled in the beginning. Lowe claimed wrongful termination after she was fired in 2009, saying she was dismissed for political reasons and sexual discrimination. The final cost to the state including the payment to Lowe and the state’s defense costs totaled $1.34 million.
Lowe’s political trouble began in 2009, when she was attempting to reduce the $50 million contract with Connecting Idaho Partners to under $30 million. Connecting Idaho Partners was responsible for delivering the state’s transportation bond program. Gov. Butch Otter’s administration urged her to back down from the cuts. It was noted that two of the firms that made up Connecting Idaho Partners were large donors to the Otter election campaign as well as that of then-Senate Transportation Chairman John McGee. Lowe asserted that the governor’s chief of staff pressured her on the contract matter. Ultimately, McGee tried to introduce legislation to strip the ITD Board’s authority to hire or terminate the director due to Lowe’s unwillingness to be influenced, but the Board ended up firing Lowe four months later anyway.
The state had hired a high profile Boise law firm, Holland and Hart, and the former Idaho State Bar President, Newal Squyres for its defense. An ITD spokesperson stated that the settlement was not an admission of guilt but an effort to reduce the cost and time that would be associated with further litigation.
“I tried to resolve this dispute early on, even as early as at the time of my termination, for much less money than what (ITD) is paying me now,” Lowe told The Spokesman-Review. “I’m certainly happy to put this behind me.” Lowe now works at the Delaware Department of Transportation.