Another aide for Paxton paid after departing
Former staffers got ‘emergency’ pay; advocacy group seeks investigation
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton continued paying his scheduling director after she had left his office, bringing to three the number of aides who kept getting checks after resigning.
AUSTIN — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton kept paying his scheduling director after she had left his office and exhausted all of her vacation time, the office disclosed Friday, bringing to three the number of aides who continued to receive paychecks after resigning.
The former scheduling director, longtime political aide Katie Lawhon, resigned her post in Paxton’s office March 21 and ran out her vacation time earlier this week, but continued re- ceiving her roughly $85,000 annual salary under a status called “emergency leave.”
Paxton’s former secondin-command and former communications director also got post-resignation pay under that status, which is supposed to be for state workers who have suffered a death in the family or have “shown good cause” for getting paid without working.
Unlike those officials, however, Lawhon’s time on emergency leave will be short-lived. After the Chronicle revealed her ar- rangement in an online story on Friday, the attorney general’s office said her leave would end that day.
The office declined further comment other than to confirm that Lawhon had gotten three days of pay while on emergency leave.
Lawhon did not return messages seeking comment. She and the former communications director, Allison Castle, both told the Texas Tribune that they did not ask for any leave beyond earned vacation time. Castle told the Tribune that Paxton had asked for her resignation, and that she had been given a prewritten resignation letter that included the terms of her compensation package, which she signed.
Critics decried the arrangement, saying it
amounted to taxpayerfunded favoritism for highranking employees.
Paxton’s use of emergency leave has drawn scrutiny since being revealed by the Dallas Morning News earlier this month because it is unusual for that type of pay to be given to former employees.
The attorney general’s office has defended the practice, including in a letter from its human resources department that called it “compassionate, legal and ethical.”
On Friday, Progress Texas, an Austin-based liberal advocacy group, asked the State Auditor’s Office to investigate whether Paxton broke any policies or laws.
A spokesman for Gov. Greg Abbott declined to say whether the governor thinks an investigation was justified.
All of those who have benefited from the unusual arrangement have been high-ranking members of Paxton’s office. Lawhon, former First Assistant Attorney General Chip Roy and Castle, the attorney general’s former communications director, were among the initial hires announced by Paxton’s transition team before he took office. All had worked for other politicians; Lawhon had advised then-Gov. Rick Perry and then-Comptroller Susan Combs.
Roy drew extra scrutiny because he left Paxton’s office to join a super PAC supporting the presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
He eventually explained he was taking emergency leave so he could continue to take advantage of his state health benefits, a key consideration because he was in remission for cancer. He gave up the leave after it was revealed, saying he had gotten clearance from his doctor.
Marc Rylander, a Paxton spokesman, said Friday that five current and former employees were listed as being on emergency leave — Castle, Lawhon and three other staffers who do not appear to have left the agency.
Records released by the office also revealed that another high-ranking official has recently left: Zindia Thomas, an assistant attorney general and the agency’s public information coordinator, who had been making an annual salary of about $90,000.
Thomas and Lawhon are the latest in a series of departures from Paxton’s office, particularly in the communications arena.
In addition to Roy and Castle, the agency also recently lost its chief of staff, Bernard McNamee, and two prominent spokeswomen, Katherine Wise and Cynthia Meyer.