Haslam: TBI needs ‘really strong leader’
NASHVILLE — As a commission prepares this month to winnow down to three the number of recommended candidates to lead the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the man who will make the appointment, Gov. Bill Haslam, has a few qualities in mind he’d like to see in finalists’ résumés.
“My view is you have to pick a really strong leader because you want the TBI to be independent,” Haslam said of the agency that serves as state government’s independent criminal investigative arm. “Once the governor selects them, then in my view the governor should be hands off from the agency. So you need a really strong leader.”
Haslam, a Republican, has other boxes he wants to see checked, as well.
“I think you want somebody who has the respect of law enforcement officials from across the state because they’ll interface. And then they need to manage a big budget,” the governor said. “And it’s [an agency] they sort of manage by themselves because again the governor doesn’t provide them oversight.”
Moreover, Haslam said he wants a “law enforcement professional, well respected and who has the ability to manage an operation as big as TBI.”
The TBI Nominating Commission last month came up with list of 10 candidates. Commission members meet again May 15, when they will select the final three to forward to the governor.
Among them is former Bradley County Sheriff Tim Gobble. He and nine others are vying for the post held by departing TBI Director Mark Gwyn, who was first appointed in 2004.
Reappointed to a third six-year term by Haslam in 2016, Gwyn announced in February his plan to leave in June.
That came on the heels of a state comptroller’s audit that criticized the agency’s use of reserve funds over a four-year period to stave off proposed Haslam administration budget reduction directives to state agencies.
Another issue involved a $10 million agency airplane initially leased for $2 million, with the agency later requesting $8 million to purchase it outright. Auditors wanted to delve into whether all trips on the aircraft were legitimate but found copies of flight logs sometimes had details blacked out.
“Although we did not identify any misuse of the aircraft, we were forced to rely on verbal statements, emails, notes on calendars and news articles, instead of unredacted documents,” auditors wrote.
During a legislative hearing in January on the audit, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Bo Watson, R-Hixson, who initiated the request for the audit, said, “Let me make something very clear. There is not a question of any degree about the excellence of the investigative ability of the TBI … not a shred.
“This is about how we help you finance those operations,” Watson told Gwyn, adding that the director should have come to lawmakers about funding problems he was facing.
The TBI’s roots stretch back to a notorious 1949 murder case in Greene County. It led to then-Greenville Sun Publisher John M. Jones Sr. urging the Tennessee Press Association to get behind the creation of an unbiased state agency that could assist local law enforcement when it came to investigating serious crimes.
As a result, a Tennessee Bureau of Criminal Identification was approved by state lawmakers in 1951. It was housed as an office within the state Department of Safety, which was controlled by the executive branch.
But after the late 1970s corruption scandals of Gov. Ray Blanton’s administration, the TBCI was transformed in 1980 by lawmakers and then-Gov. Lamar Alexander into the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, an independent agency.
Ever since, a fivemember TBI Nominating Commission screens applications, interviews prospective nominees and makes recommendations to the governor.
The TBI is responsible for assisting local law enforcement in major crime investigations, as well as launching its own special investigations into illegal drugs, cybercrimes targeting children, human trafficking, fugitives, public corruption, official misconduct, organized crime, domestic terrorism, gambling, Medicaid fraud and patient abuse.
Its director runs the bureau as chief executive officer and oversees an annual budget of more than $75 million. The bureau has more than 500 employees statewide, about half of whom are commissioned law enforcement officers.
TBI is organized into six major divisions: Criminal Investigation, Drug Investigation, Forensic Services (the agency has three crime labs), Information Systems, Administrative Services and Training.
The TBI collects state crime statistics, manages a TBI Most Wanted list, an AMBER Alert program and statewide registries of sex offenders and methamphetamine offenders.