Leadership within Colorado’s Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management has created a “toxic work environment” that includes “yelling and showing a lack of respect” toward its employees, a state staffer alleged in a complaint filed this summer.
The complaint spurred the division to launch an internal investigation — the fourth probe in two years involving employee complaints against division leadership.
The Department of Public Safety, in its investigative findings obtained Tuesday by The Denver Post, said the workplace culture concerns raised by the unidentified staffer would be addressed by a third-party probe currently underway.
Leadership, however, did substantiate claims that an unnamed director had communicated “discourteously” with two subordinates in late 2021.
Several witnesses interviewed during the investigation also “made new and concerning statements related to equity, diversity and inclusion.” The comments made by one employee “also merit a close review as part of the ongoing workplace assessment.”
The latest investigation, which has not been previously reported, launched July 26, the day after The Denver Post published an investigation into years of aggressive and hostile behavior by Mike Willis, the director of Colorado’s Office of Emergency Management.
The Post’s report found Willis had been suspended twice in 18 months for berating female staffers, throwing objects in rage and intimidating employees.
During one incident in 2020, Willis pointed his finger into a worker’s head and said, “Are you a (expletive) idiot?” according to an internal investigation.
State leadership, in memos, said Willis’s conduct put the division in a position of liability. Kevin Klein, who leads the state’s Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said the director “demonstrated a pattern of inappropriate behavior that must be corrected,” warning Willis that similar behavior in the future would likely lead to his firing.
Current and former employees told The Post that Willis was known to be belligerent during meetings and at industry conferences, where multiple attendees said they witnessed drunk, boorish behavior.
Division leadership also declined to investigate an employee’s claim from 2019 that Willis was drunk during the state’s response to the STEM School Highlands Ranch shooting. The division only launched a probe this summer after The Post asked questions about the incident.
Stan Hilkey — who heads the Department of Public Safety, which oversees the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management — and Klein said they could not substantiate the claim, calling into question the motives of whistleblowers believed to be talking to the press.
The state last month hired an outside firm to assess the workplace culture in the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
The $35,000 probe, led by Colorado-based Research Evaluation Consulting, is expected to conduct interviews, review “overall operational health” and make recommendations for “improving the culture and structure of the division.”
Hilkey said the assessment would not focus on one individual, but rather on the department as a whole.
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