Ohio Workers’ Compensation Bureau Manager Quit Amid Ethical Questions

A manager at Ohio’s insurance fund for injured workers has resigned amid ethical questions about whether his private side business benefited from connections he made while on the state payroll.

Documents provided to The Associated Press through a public records request show James Fograscher left Oct. 26 as interim director of self-insurance at the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, a position he held for nine months. The department he managed regulates 1,200 Ohio businesses — many of them larger — that carry their own workers’ comp insurance.

His departure came shortly after questions about his business, Executive Huddle, were referred to the Ohio Ethics Commission. A division of the company, The Ergo Huddle, offers ergonomic services similar to those provided by the bureau.

Information the bureau provided to the AP showed 11 of 20 clients listed on the Executive Huddle website are self-insured companies that Fograscher’s state office oversaw. Among them are American Electric Power, Pepsi-Cola Bottling Co. of Mansfield, Honda of America, Kaiser Aluminum, Nationwide Insurance and Whirlpool Corp.

Fograscher, 46, declined to comment when contacted Friday by the AP.

Bureau spokeswoman Maria Smith said the department has asked the Ethics Commission to determine whether Fograscher crossed any lines.

“He was in a position where he was making decisions that would impact self-insured employers,” Smith said. “Any time an employee conducts outside work that may involve an employer, the concern is if it’s going to impact treatment of the employer in decisions being made here (at the bureau).”

According to his personnel file, Fograscher was disciplined in 1997 for using state time, equipment and resources to prepare a training presentation for which he was privately paid for a West Virginia employer doing business with the state. He was docked a day’s vacation for the breach.

Since then, records show Fograscher appearing to be diligent in asking for clearance to conduct outside work from either a superior or from James Barnes, the bureau’s chief ethics officer. Seven separate requests in 2004, 2006, 2007 and this April were all approved. Some of the requests were for earlier freelance work, mostly facilitating events. Executive Huddle was incorporated in August 2007.

It was The Ergo Huddle that raised a red flag, Smith said. In an earlier position as a performance consultant, Fograscher would have gained an expertise in ergonomic issues through his taxpayer-funded work experience.

Records also show Fograscher’s statements changing over the years regarding the relationship of his outside work and his jobs at the bureau. In early e-mails, he noted that bureau-related subjects would not come up in his jobs and that those he served didn’t even know where he worked.

In 2007, he asked to conduct a safety audit for Kaiser Aluminum, a Foothill Ranch, Calif., company with Ohio operations. Fograscher had an earlier job conducting safety audits.

In April, he conceded that an ergonomics analysis he’d been asked to do for Kaiser was related to workers’ compensation. But he said it “has and had nothing to do with my current job at BWC.” He said he’d recused himself as director of self-insurance from making decisions related to Kaiser.