A state legislator who’s now issued two legislative subpoenas to state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters said he hopes Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s office will look deeper into the employment status of Walters’ top adviser, who Walters acknowledged last week is working without a contract or agreement of employment.

Documents obtained by state Rep. Mark McBride and House Speaker Charles McCall through their most recent subpoena showed Walters’ adviser, Matt Langston, has been either a temporary or part-time employee of the Oklahoma State Department of Education since January 2023, when Walters took office.

Langston, the agency told McBride and McCall, is currently listed as a part-time employee.

Public records indicate that for what the agency has said was part-time work, Langston was paid $113,500 in 2023 and has been paid $45,475 through April of this year, including a $2,600 “discretionary performance award” given on Jan. 12. Langston also receives state benefits despite his part-time status.

According to the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission, part-time employment is defined as working fewer than 35 hours per week. However, the state payroll records website indicates Langston worked about 45.5 hours per week during January, the most recent pay period listed.

McBride said the attorney general’s office is aware of the situation: “I would say it’s on their radar. This puts it more on their radar.”

But a spokesman for that office said, “We haven’t received any request to investigate the issues Rep. McBride referenced to you, so we just don’t have a comment to make at this time.”

The Oklahoman asked state Department of Education spokesman Dan Isett whether Langston was a full-time or part-time employee, why Langston averaged 45.5 hours per week in January, what specific work Langston does on behalf of the agency, why Langston receives state benefits if he’s a part-time employee, why Langston received the performance bonus and why Langston is allowed to work remotely from Texas.

Isett didn’t answer any of those questions in his response:

“Under Superintendent Walters, OSDE has rapidly brought about some of the most sweeping education reforms in the country, like implementing the most effective teacher recruitment initiative in state history, launching the most comprehensive tutoring program in the nation, passing a rule to tie school accreditation to academics, and he has been instrumental in bringing about substantial reform of the state’s largest district to focus on student outcomes,” Isett said. “These reforms and many others have been implemented with Matt Langston due to his effectiveness.

“McBride is a liar and continues to create a false narrative based on his denial that outcomes are needed to reform education. He has shown a willingness to work directly with radical unions, extremist LGBTQ+ communities, and the far left to stop common sense reforms.  It’s unfortunate that instead of reform he’s only interested in individually targeting and attacking effective employees.”

McBride has pressed Walters for months for information about Langston’s employment status. The legislator told The Oklahoman he “knew all along” there wasn’t a contract or employment agreement for Langston, but “I wanted (Walters) to tell me that. Who wouldn’t love a job like that? Nobody else has a job like that.”

“There are certain things (Langston) has to do to be able to have insurance,” McBride said. “I know anywhere you go to work, there has to be some kind of paper trail. He may not have had a specific employee contract, but there should have been an offer letter, some kind of an employment contract or contracts relating to his work on behalf of OSDE, a job description. But there’s nothing.”

McBride referred to Langston as a ghost employee. “We’ve dealt with that once before in other agencies, but he is definitely a ghost employee.”

McBride was referring to a 2000 scandal involving the Oklahoma State Department of Health, when five former legislators and 21 relatives of current or former legislators were found to be on that agency’s payroll. The nickname was given to employees who were paid but did little or no work.

Langston worked for Walters’ political campaign before his current position with education department

Langston served on Walters’ political campaign before being employed by the agency. He’s well-known in Texas political circles as a campaign adviser. Langston’s LinkedIn page lists his job as “Political Consultant-Strategy-Messaging-Management.” No mention of his work with the Oklahoma Education Department is listed.

According to public records, Langston is the chief executive officer of a Georgetown, Texas-based company known as Engage Right LLC, which its website describes as “a boutique consulting shop that specializes in telling your story to voters.”

The legislative subpoena, issued May 23 and signed by McBride, R-Moore, and McCall, R-Atoka, sought “any contracts relating to Matt Langston’s work on behalf of the Oklahoma State Department of Education, the Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters, and/or the State of Oklahoma.”

More: Subpoena reveals Ryan Walters’ advisor has no formal employment contract: What to know

The subpoena asked for “offer letters of employment, applications for employment, and job descriptions for employment” for Langston, who lives in Texas while serving as Walters’ chief adviser. Walters sent his response to the subpoena on Thursday and told McCall that Langston was a “direct hire” to the state Education Department. “As such, he did not complete an application, and he did not sign a contract for employment,” Walters said.

In an earlier email to McBride, Andrea Fielding — a former deputy director of the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation who’s now the chief of operations for the Education Department — said Langston served as a “temporary employee” at the agency from Jan. 13, 2023, through June 30, 2023. Fielding said since July 1, 2023, Langston “has been a part-time employee with benefits. Due to the nature of his employment, his hours fluctuate monthly, leading to variations in his gross pay.”

In his reply to the subpoena, Walters did not include any offer letter or employment application and said he was “unsure what significant or nefarious information could be gleaned” from such documents “for an employee who has worked with my agency for over 17 months.”

Walters did include a document that appears to be a job description for a ”chief policy advisor” at the agency. The document lists the position as full-time, not part-time, and said the salary was “based on education and experience.” The location of the job is listed as the Oliver Hodge Building in Oklahoma City, where the agency is located, although it notes the position “is eligible for telework.” Langston lives in the Austin, Texas, metropolitan area.

The last review of the document is listed as January 2023, which is the month Walters took office.

Workers who’ve left agency say remote work is frowned upon

Even though Langston is allowed to work remotely, multiple former employees of the agency who once worked remotely have told The Oklahoman that Walters essentially banned that practice when he became the state superintendent. In a resignation letter dated March 7, Linda Reid — a former Oklahoma Teacher of the Year who worked in the agency’s Office of School Support — noted how employees in that office who lived in towns spread across Oklahoma in order to better service schools in their areas often had worked at home when not visiting a school.

“Although intentionally hired from diverse geographic regions and charged with supporting schools … predominantly those near our region, we were informed we were being assigned to physically ‘office’ daily in an arbitrary local school — without consulting that school — and that all our work must occur there, on the road at another school site, or within the physical OSDE,” Reid wrote.

Recordings provided to The Oklahoman by other former agency employees indicate the dictate to end remote work from home came from Walters.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Lawmaker calls Ryan Walters’ adviser Matt Langston a ‘ghost employee’