Governor’s chief of staff rebuts testimony, cites discrimination claims against SBI
With Republican lawmakers looking to again move the SBI from Democratic oversight, Gov. Roy Cooper’s chief of staff on Thursday claimed that the current director has created a stew of harmful personnel issues that need to be handled in an external review.
“Over the past several years, current and former agents and others have contacted us to share a variety of information that left us increasingly concerned about the direction of the SBI and whether it was continuing to meet its high historical standards,” Kristi Jones, Cooper’s chief of staff, wrote in the letter to two House members who lead the House Oversight and Reform Committee.
Jones said those concerns include “a lack of racial diversity among sworn SBI agents, promotion decisions and practices, and access to training, among others.”
The letter follows testimony by SBI Director Bob Schurmeier before the House committee last week in which he claimed that Jones and another top Cooper administration official were trying to force him to resign over a discrimination claim. He saw it as “clear intimidation” that he would not bow to, according to WRAL, which first reported the committee meeting.
Schurmeier, a former deputy chief and interim chief of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, was appointed to the position in 2016 by then Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican.
This week, the state House approved a budget that would move the SBI out of the state Department of Public Safety, which Cooper oversees.
The budget provision would make the SBI a separate cabinet level agency. The process for selecting a director would not change, with the governor appointing and the legislature confirming, but the provision includes giving the legislature the right to remove a director by a three-fifths majority.
If successful, this would mark the second time in less than a decade that the Republican-controlled state legislature has removed the SBI from a Democrat-led agency. In 2014, state lawmakers voted to move the SBI from the state Department of Justice, which Cooper led then as state attorney general, to DPS.
Neither Jones or Schurmeier have provided specifics about the discrimination claims they reference. Both cite state personnel law, which keeps many personnel matters secret. That law, however, includes an exemption allowing agency heads to make public personnel information when an agency’s integrity is in question.
In the newly released letter, Jones says members of the governor’s staff met with Schurmeier late last year to discuss the personnel issues, which “threatened significant harm to the SBI’s morale, operations, and reputation.”
“In those meetings, we advised the Director that we thought a review of the SBI’s diversity practices and policies was warranted,” Jones wrote. “We also advised the Director that such a review should be conducted by an outside law firm to ensure independence and because of the potential for litigation.”
Jones said the SBI should pay for the review, which has yet to take place. She said the legislature’s decision in 2014 to remove “normal executive oversight” of the SBI has made it more difficult to set up the review.
The News & Observer reached out to the SBI on Thursday but did not receive a response from Schurmeier to the letter. On Monday, his attorney, Chris Swecker, emailed a statement:
“The Director’s concerns are focused entirely on external and politically motivated interference with the daily operations of the State’s primary investigative agency. Having all SBI Administration functions and 8 executive positions including the SBI General Counsel under the control of the Governor introduces a level of influence that undermines the independence of the SBI,” it read.
“There is a well defined process for handling the type of administrative complaint raised in Kristi [Jones’] letter. Using this as leverage to bully the SBI Director into resigning his position after a spotless 40 year career in law enforcement and investigations is stark example of why the SBI needs to be untethered from political interference,” the statement also said.
Republican Rep. Jake Johnson, a co-chair of the oversight committee, in an email said that he and other legislators are working to get an accurate sense of what has occurred. They want to ensure “no unjustified actions have taken place that would undermine the integrity or the independence of the SBI,” he wrote.
Schurmeier named General Counsel Eric Fletcher in addition to Jones in his recent testimony, Johnson said.
“I have received a letter from Ms. Jones giving her account of some events that occurred and reasons for actions that were taken. I look forward to hearing from her and Mr. Fletcher while giving the committee a chance to have the questions answered that were raised in the previous testimony,” he said.
This story was originally published April 6, 2023 at 6:36 PM.