Ethics Complaint Against Flathead County Public Service Commissioner Not Accepted

An ethics complaint filed with Montana’s Commissioner of Political Practices (COPP) against Annie Bukacek, Flathead County’s representative on the Public Service Commission, was not accepted for further action.

The complaint filed against Bukacek by fellow commissioner Brad Molnar, of Laurel, alleged she had used PSC resources to conduct business related to her private medical practice, which is based in Kalispell. Specifically, it alleged she used the Public Service Commission’s (PSC) copy room and brought papers containing protected medical information about her patients to the PSC. The complaint echoed concerns leveled at Bukacek by opponents in her initial run for the PSC, which were focused on her ability to effectively serve as a commissioner while maintaining her private medical practice.

In an emailed statement, Bukacek characterized Molnar’s complaint as “baseless” and said it prompted her political opponents “to chime in as though the false allegations were valid.”

“Beloved patients of mine questioned me whether or not his false allegations were true,” according to Bukacek. “His unjust action against me sends a further chill to staff’s willingness to come forth with complaints about Brad Molnar’s unprofessional conduct. After all, if he can retaliate against a fellow commissioner and get away with injurious content, what protection is there for our wonderful, dedicated PSC staff?”

Chris Gallus, the state’s commissioner of political practices, wrote in his finding that Molnar’s complaint was “insufficiently supported.” Molnar apparently submitted paper from the PSC’s trash bin, fax cover sheets and several pages of evidence on which Molnar had “hand-written the date they were retrieved and ‘business correspondence.’” Gallus also referred to claims that Bukacek brought papers containing protected medical information as “pure speculation.”

Bukacek, for her part, told Gallus she brought discarded paper from her office to the PSC office for recycling, as her office “doesn’t produce enough wastepaper to require pick-up.” Her medical office, however, is “primarily electronic” and she doesn’t have remote access to patient medical records. While her office maintains paper copies of files, Bukacek told Gallus she rarely has cause to copy any of those files and did not recall a time when she used the “copy” function on the equipment in the copy room.

“Read as a whole, the Code of Ethics does not allow me to conclude recycling services are included in the use of state resources for private business purposes,” Gallus wrote. “Some legal gymnastics may allow others to reach a conclusion that use of the employer provided recycling service is use of public resources for personal gain but that is a jump I refuse to make.”

He added that interpreting Bukacek’s use of recycling bins as a Code of Ethics violation would be overbroad and “provide an additional reason to reject this complaint.” While he acknowledged bringing outside recycling to the workplace could pose an inconvenience, Gallus stated it should remain up to the agency to address that.

“We understand that the COPP fully reviewed the filing and did not accept the complaint,” Alana Lake, the PSC’s executive director, wrote in an email to the Beacon. “We appreciate the COPP’s thorough, transparent, and professional review of the matter.”

Molnar’s complaint against Bukacek comes during a leadership shakeup on the PSC, in which Molnar was recently ousted as the body’s president. That shakeup comes amid an ongoing investigation into his workplace conduct.

Bukacek, along with fellow commissioners Jeff Welborn and Jennifer Fielder, voted yes on Molnar’s ouster on Oct. 21. On Oct. 28, the same trio voted to install Welborn, a first-term commissioner from Dillon, as the body’s new president. Molnar filed his complaint against Bukacek the following day, Oct. 29.

Bukacek said in her eyes, the allegation was made as an act of workplace retaliation “with no factual, actual or moral basis for the spurious, specious, retributive, punitive complaint.”

“Before Commissioner Molnar, the unjust complainant, had been removed from his position as president, I had made an admission that I was one of the sources of complaint to human resources concerning his behavior and what I felt was abuse of power,” Bukacek said. “The complaint filed against me by Commissioner Molnar was eight days after I made the motion to remove him as president and one day after the PSC voted to seat his replacement as president. A coincidence? I think not.”

Molnar previously told the Beacon the complaint was not meant to be retaliatory — a claim he doubled down on in a response to COPP’s findings on Thursday morning.

“I passed a polygraph that I had not taken retaliation or obstructed in any way during the investigation on myself,” Molnar wrote in an email to the Beacon. He distributed his polygraph results, along with results from fellow Commissioner Randy Pinocci, to members of the press in mid-October. “The same polygraph showed that I never harassed Commissioner Bukacek.”

Molnar added his concerns were both the “minor crime of using state equipment for professional use” and “that the equipment is being used in what seems to be HIPAA violations, and not reporting it makes the PSC liable.”

COPP’s letter states that it is not the proper venue through which to handle HIPAA violations.

Molnar’s complaint and the PSC leadership debacle come as recent installments in a much longer saga of conflict and controversy on the PSC. The body has a long history with instances of corruption, conflicts among its members and, in more recent years, office culture issues and a lawsuit focused on the redrawing of the state’s five PSC districts.  

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This story has been updated to reflect comment received from Commissioner Brad Molnar after the Flathead Beacon’s publication deadline.