The Department of Public Safety, in its investigative findings obtained Tuesday by The Denver Post, said the workplace culture concerns raised by the unidentified staffer would be addressed by a third-party probe currently underway.
Leadership within Colorado’s Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management has created a “toxic work environment” that includes “yelling and showing a lack of respect” toward its employees, a state staffer alleged in a complaint filed this summer.
Officials, however, did substantiate claims that the man leading Colorado’s emergency responses, Mike Willis, had communicated “discourteously” with two subordinates in late 2021. Willis’s name is redacted in the report, but his actions were confirmed by a person familiar with the complaint who was not authorized to speak publicly about the probe.
The Post’s report found Willis had been suspended twice in 18 months for berating female staffers, throwing objects in rage and intimidating employees.The complainant, who was not named, first came to department leadership in early July, according to the investigative report. Willis then entered the room, yelling, “You are not to interfere with these people at all,” the complainant told investigators. “Stay out, don’t interrupt. We are under the governor’s authority, and we have a mission. Unless you have approval, you are not to be in there.”Willis later apologized. But one witness told investigators that the complainant told her that the supervisor had only apologized “because you’re a Black woman.
The investigation did not look into the workplace culture accusations, but multiple witnesses told state investigators that the “bad environment” had been going on for years, resulting in staffers leaving the department or looking for other jobs. The individual also alleged that division leadership discouraged an employee from filing a grievance — an accusation that Locke did not sustain in her investigation. Allegations of repeated violations of the state’s toll road policy also were unfounded, Locke wrote.