Jun. 22—TRAVERSE CITY — Two now-former executives of Northern Lakes Community Mental Health Authority say insinuations of wrongdoing, shared during board meetings and with law enforcement, unfairly damaged their reputations and skewed public opinion.

“There was no misconduct, no collusion, there isn’t any evidence of that, they’ve made innuendos that Joanie and Laurie couldn’t respond to until now,” said attorney Jay Zelenock, who represents Joanie Blamer and Lauri Fischer. “It’s been tremendously unfair.”

Blamer, the former interim chief executive officer, and Fischer, the former chief financial officer, had previously declined to speak publicly about their separations from the organization — Blamer resigned in April and Fischer was fired in December — citing Northern Lakes’ media policy and legal considerations.

Blamer is a social worker hired in 2006 who twice served as interim CEO, before being placed on paid administrative leave last September, filing a whistleblower lawsuit in 13th Circuit Court against the organization, and ultimately resigning in April.

Fischer is an accountant hired in 1997 who, in 2020, was promoted to CFO, was placed on paid administrative leave the same day as Blamer. She, too, sued the organization after being fired in December.

The former employees said they no longer feel constrained from speaking publicly about their experiences. Both said they were devoted to Northern Lakes’ mission of providing services to people in need. Both had planned to stay in their jobs until they retired.

Blamer said she still believes Northern Lakes is an exceptional organization, and praised frontline workers there as skilled and dedicated, while chiding decision-makers.

“At this point, I would not recommend anyone for leadership because the organization is still in chaos, mostly as a result of the board,” Blamer said.

The two former executives in court documents accuse Northern Lakes of harassment and retaliation and say they believe they were ousted for pointing out problems in the beleaguered organization.

“I worked there for 27 years and absolutely loved 26 of them,” Fischer said. “I’m very sad that it is gone.”

Blamer in April accepted a $250,000 settlement and Fischer’s lawsuit is ongoing, records show.

Neither the board nor the current interim CEO, Brian Martinus, responded to requests for comment — including to specific questions raised by payroll documents the Record-Eagle received in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

At issue now are differing views about the approximately $46,000 in interim CEO pay that Blamer continued to receive, in addition to her regular supervisory salary, after Martinus replaced Blamer as interim CEO.

CEO controversies

The organization hasn’t had a permanent CEO since Karl Kovaks retired in 2021.

Blamer applied for the job, but the board offered the position to another candidate, Dave Pankotai, who declined the offer, citing salary limits. The board later offered Blamer the job, then rescinded the offer amid a controversial board shakeup.

Since then, the board has vowed to work together more harmoniously, to modernize bylaws and governance style, and has requested more detailed reports from staff.

Blamer and Fischer say Blamer was both approved for, and entitled to, the extra pay, even after Martinus was named interim CEO, because she continued to shoulder some CEO-level responsibilities.

Martinus, in public documents, has said the extra pay during that time was not authorized.

And the board, in public meetings, has discussed reports by a consultant, public advisory firm Rehmann, of “possible collusion” by unnamed former employees — which Blamer and Fischer say is a veiled swipe at them.

Management and payroll chronology

In August 2021, Northern Lakes’ board members unanimously voted to name Blamer interim CEO and pay her $1,100 a week above her approximately $104,000 salary, to do two jobs — interim CEO and chief population officer, after Kovaks, retired.

Blamer, the board motion stated, was to receive the additional pay “until replacement.”

A second motion authorized Blamer to sign payroll and general ledger checks.

After a controversial offer of the CEO job to Blamer collapsed, Martinus was named interim CEO in October 2022.

By then, repeated episodes of dysfunction at Northern Lakes had come to the attention of leaders at Northern Michigan Regional Entity, distributor of the organization’s Medicaid funding.

Northern Lakes receives a majority of its $90 million annual funding from Medicaid and provides services in six counties — Crawford, Grand Traverse, Leelanau, Missaukee, Roscommon and Wexford — and is governed by as many as 16 board members appointed to three-year terms by their respective county commissioners.

Martinus, an NMRE employee, replaced Blamer, and his $130,000 salary was paid by NMRE.

Internal details

There was a transition period, which Martinus, in public documents, says lasted about two weeks and Blamer and Fischer told the Record-Eagle lasted nearly a year.

“The question came up, is there a conflict because he’s an NMRE employee and they’re our conduit to MDHHS and none of us knew the answer to that,” Blamer said of Martinus’ appointment.

“So I was asked to continue some of the financial functions including signing all the checks and payroll,” Blamer said.

Blamer said Dan DeKorse, then chairman of Northern Lakes board, confirmed to her she’d continue to receive the extra pay until Martinus assumed all interim CEO responsibilities.

DeKorse, who is no longer on the board, said Friday that Blamer did continue some interim CEO-level work as Martinus familiarized himself with the job.

“There was an overlap where Brian (Martinus) was shadowing Joanie, and in meetings with Brian I would ask him how it was going and he would say she was still helping out,” DeKorse said.

Then in January or February 2023, Martinus was “good to go.” DeKorse said he believed the extra pay would end, although he acknowledged Blamer may have still been needed by the organization to sign checks if Martinus could not.

DeKorse left the board in March 2023, said he had no information about the organization’s finances after that, and records show Blamer continued to sign checks and other financial documents and continued to receive the extra $1,100 in her paycheck through early September 2023.

Martinus on Sept. 18, 2023, placed Blamer and Fischer on administrative leave for reasons he declined to state publicly.

Blamer and Fischer, however, said Martinus walked them out of the building that day, pending an internal investigation Martinus told them was related to Blamer’s extra CEO pay.

Fischer said this was confusing to her since, days before, she’d sent Martinus an email which appears to remind Martinus he still wasn’t an “authorizer” on payroll checks and needed to get that taken care of so the additional pay to Blamer could end.

“In doing so we need to also remove the per diem that Joanie continues to receive for her additional CEO responsibilities,” the email states.

Martinus, two weeks later, spoke to a detective with the Michigan State Police, and filed a wage theft complaint.

Martinus provided payroll receipts to Detective Mike Fink that he said showed about $97,000 was paid to Blamer in extra interim CEO pay between July 2021 and September 2023, some of which he said he did not believe had been authorized.

Fink said Friday that he found no criminal wrongdoing and the investigation was closed as unfounded in March.

Three weeks later, on April 22, Blamer and Martinus signed Blamer’s settlement, calling for her to receive $250,000 in three checks from Northern Lakes and its insurance carrier, the Michigan Municipal Risk Management Authority.

Fischer’s lawsuit is ongoing in 13th Circuit Court.

Blamer said she’s moving on with her life, but there’s something that bothers her.

“It is my understanding they used my digital signature (to sign checks) up until Oct. 10 or Oct. 13, 2023,” Blamer said, which is about three weeks after she was put on leave.

“They did not ask me if they could continue to do that,” she said. “They just assumed they could continue to do that.”