Huntsman hirings, firings and deals detailed in reports

A peek into the private decision-making of Gov.-elect Jon Huntsman Jr. and his top aides, as they prepared last December to take office in 2005, is revealed in a 2-inch-thick "transition book" released to the news media this week.

The loose-leaf collection is a big but sketchy in-house picture of state government operations, problems and possible remedies.

Background details in the book reveal that Huntsman — based on one of his volunteer transition team's stinging evaluation and strong endorsement for change — fired a top executive, then hired the leader of the transition team to fill the vacancy.

D'Arcy Dixon Pignanelli, last fall the chief of staff to Murray Mayor Dan Snarr, headed Huntsman's transition team looking at the Department of Administrative Services, a catch-all agency that includes internal state workings such as motor pools, finance and purchasing.

Pignanelli and her team suggested that then-executive director Camille Anthony not be kept on in the new Huntsman administration.

"Not a single team member is prepared to recommend that (Anthony) be retained," said the Dec. 16 final report to Huntsman — who would take office three weeks later.

Huntsman let Anthony go and hired, of all people, Pignanelli. She remains today the only recognizable Democrat in GOP Huntsman's Cabinet.

"I was surprised to be asked to serve on a transition team," Pignanelli said Tuesday. "I had no idea, none, that I would ever receive an offer to join the Huntsman administration" either before or just after her team's report was handed in. In the last week of December, Huntsman called to ask her to be in his Cabinet.

Pignanelli said after the job offer she asked top Huntsman aides if the governor was "OK with the fact that the team" recommended that Anthony be let go. "I wanted to make sure (Huntsman) would not be harmed" if that recommendation got out after he named Pignanelli to the post. She said she was reassured that Huntsman was aware of the possible conflict and rejected it. She said she then accepted the job.

Pignanelli's team made a number of recommendations, including reorganizing state information services (computers, software, etc.) into a separate department. A reorganizing of state IT is under way after Pignanelli's team and a separate transition team both said state IT was a mess.

Pignanelli wasn't the only person on a Huntsman transition team to end up with a state job.

Kent Michie, co-chair of his financial institutions team, was ultimately hired as the state's insurance commissioner. Michie was not on the insurance transition team.