OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma Veterans Commission, the group that oversees the state’s veterans department and its seven long-term care centers, voted 5-1 last Friday to fire the agency’s executive director, Joel Kintsel.
The group took the action during a 40-minute long executive session.
Shortly after the group voted to oust Kintsel, they returned to executive session. Following that the group voted 5-0 to hire retired Rear Admiral Greg Slavonic, a former undersecretary of the U.S. Navy, as interim executive director of the ODVA.
Kintsel did not attend the meeting Friday. For more than a year, Kintsel, the ODVA and the Veterans Commission have been under fire. Kintsel said three members of the commission were improperly appointed by Gov. Kevin Stitt. Kintsel also locked horns with new members of the commission.
In February, Attorney General Gentner Drummond issued a media statement saying the current appointments to the commission were not allowed by law.
“Governor Stitt has not followed the lawfully ascribed process, claiming the veterans’ groups were ineligible to submit nominees because they had not complied with an audit requirement,” Drummond’s statement read. “This entire episode has been nothing short of a spectacle. It is unfortunate that the governor has not followed the proper appointment process, and it is equally unfortunate that the executive director of the state Department of Veterans Affairs is acting irresponsibly and not in the best interests of veterans. It is wholly unacceptable that Oklahoma’s honorable veterans have been left without a functional commission.”
Drummond said state statutes show an audit of the board is only required every three years, upon or in anticipation of the expiration of a commissioner’s term. If a member is removed in a year prior to the statutory expiration of his or her term – as has been the case here – then the nominee must be selected from lists provided by the affected veterans’ organizations.
Drummond said state law prevents sitting commission members from being immediately removed because their successors were not properly appointed – nor have they been confirmed.
Last year Kintsel ran against Stitt for governor in the Republican Primary election.
The commission’s action is the latest episode in an ongoing ODVA drama. In February, the state’s chief information officer told the commission that veterans’ personal identification information was being stored in datasets hosted outside of the state network.
Just after the new year, ODVA staff faced questions about the construction of the Sallisaw Veterans Home project. The project, staff members said, needed $21 million in supplemental funding to be finished.
It never had to come to this,” Chairman Robert Allen said Friday. “As we meet here today, this agency faces critical issues. We have found ourselves distracted by other issues.”
In January 2018, a group of lawmakers announced their support for Kintsel’s move to become the agency’s deputy director. Kintsel, a former parliamentarian with the Oklahoma House of Representatives, is popular among lawmakers.
In 2011, after a series of stories were published about multiple cases of abuse, neglect and death and several of the state’s veterans’ centers, then-Gov. Mary Fallin ousted eight members of the Veterans Commission and forced Martha Spear, the ODVA’s executive director at the time, to retire.
Fallin designated Gen. Rita Aragon, her Secretary of Veterans Affairs, as the lead in an effort to right the beleaguered agency.
Since then, state veterans have seen better access to long-term care and to VA benefits, despite infighting between members of the commission and other state leaders.