Andy Sylvan was the assistant director of community development in Greenwood. He helped the Governor uncover financial mismanagement of a state grant by Sylvan's boss, Rose Almindinger. However, after helping the Governor, Sylvan's career suffered - he was passed over for a promotion, received a poor performance review, and faced ostracization at work. He eventually left his job and took a teaching position with less pay due to how he was treated after blowing the whistle on corruption.

1. Andy Sylvan was the assistant director of the community
development department of the city of Greenwood. Greenwood
was an outer suburb of the capital city, and while most of its
citizens were affluent, it did have a pocket of residential
poverty near a riverbank across from an urban industrial
complex. Sylvan was active in writing grant proposals for both
federal and state funding of a redevelopment project. One of his
state grant applications was successful, and the state
government awarded a block grant of $3 million for renovation
of the area. The renovation money would permit the community
development department to purchase land and build a park near
the area’s elementary school, to pave several streets, and to
improve the storm drainage system. Money would also be
available to bring plumbing systems in several homes up to code
standards. Sylvan’s boss, Rose Almindinger, was a political
appointee who was well connected to leaders of the local
Republican Party.
While she had had administrative experience with a construction
firm, she had never been in charge of financial affairs in any
sense beyond balancing her personal checkbook. One has to
seriously question if she did that very well. What she seemed
not to understand was that the moneys that came from state
grants were not to be mixed with her private bank accounts.
Almindinger was sort of like George Washington Plunkitt
1
in that she believed in honest graft, that is, when she saw her
opportunity, she took it. The grant and its block structure sure
looked like an opportunity. After all, just what is community
development? Almindinger saw a chance to arrange bids for
street construction so that her former company could win the
business at a higher price than others would charge. A glaring
loophole in the grant system seemed to suggest that she could

2. award contracts without going through the city’s purchasing and
bidding systems. She also found leeway to attend a conference
on park development in Hawaii on the state’s dollar. A friend of
hers ran a travel agency and she was more than anxious to help
Rose. In fact, she told Almindinger that she could bill her for
travel expenses for both her and her husband in a way that it
would appear that all airline costs were for one person. The two
enjoyed 7 days on Maui, all expenses paid by the city, while
Mrs. Rose Almindinger made brief appearances at the 2-day
conference. Almindinger also hired four political friends for
temporary jobs on grant projects, paying them $40 an hour. No
one managed the four, and only Almindinger received reports of
their work. Their employment cost the grant $30,000 in just 2
months.
While there was evidence of some improvements being made in
the grant project neighborhood, rumors of waste, fraud, and
abuse started to circulate. One of Almindinger’s appointees had
a penchant to be verbally abusive to certain assistants in the
department office, and the assistants had contacted the city
personnel director. Sylvan heard about the abuses, and he talked
with the employees. That’s when he heard also about some of
the financial problems in the project, and that’s when he heard
about Almindinger’s trip to Hawaii with her husband. She had
told Sylvan that she had to take a week of leave time to travel to
North Carolina to be with her sick father.
While all of this was going on, Almindinger announced that she
was going to be running for the state assembly. Her four project
appointees soon were circulating petitions door to door and also
around city hall gathering names so that she could be on the
ballot. Sylvan sensed that there was a severe violation of the
state’s Little Hatch Act in this activity. Without warning to
Sylvan, one day a reporter showed up at city hall and started
asking questions about the grant project. Sylvan was very
careful to avoid the reporter, once barely missing him by

3. ducking into the men’s room. He then snuck out a side door and
phoned his assistant to tell him he was taking his lunch break
early.
The reporter did not gather much information, but he did drop a
few lines in his weekly local affairs column suggesting that the
state might be looking into irregularities in grant programs at
Greenwood city hall. Governor Tyler Phillipson was facing a
tough reelection campaign. The Democrat was facing an even
tougher fight to keep the state House of Representatives’
majority with his party. The Greenwood seat was open, but it
had been held by a Democrat. The district was considered very
competitive, and the Democrats had not been successful in
recruiting their first choice as a candidate. Douglas
Springfellow, an Iraq War veteran, had expressed interest, but
at the last moment he told Phillipson that he really had to get on
with life and support his family by taking a management job
with the local chemical company. The Democrats then found
Professor Howard Hopper, a regular activist since the Vietnam
War, to carry the party banner into the race. Governor
Phillipson agreed to come to Greenwood and organize a fund
raiser for Hopper, but he was sure that Almindinger’s campaign
would easily outspend the Democrat. When rumors of the grant
problem hit the governor’s desk it was like a godsend. With his
authority and the help of the state attorney general, also a
Democrat, they could expose Almindinger.
He needed some proof from someone close to the scene. He had
his associates snoop around Greenwood to gather information.
One name they kept coming up with, a name that was on all the
grant applications, was Andrew George Sylvan.
Sylvan was sitting at home watching
Aaron Cooper 360
on CNN when his phone rang. The caller asked, “Hello,
Andrew, how are you tonight?”

4. Sylvan was fearful it was a request for charity. He gave a meek,
“Yeah, I’m O.K., what do you need?”
“Andrew, this is Tyler.”
“Tyler who?”
“Tyler Phillipson—Governor Phillipson. Could we talk a
minute?”
Andy was rather shocked. He had met the governor only once
before and that was in a reception line at a capital chapter
meeting of the American Society of Public Administration. He
was sure the governor would not remember that.
But sure enough, the governor said, “Andrew, we met at, let me
think, it was the meeting of that public administration group
down at Celentinos on Chicago Street. When was that, oh, must
have been 7 or 8 months ago.”
“Boy, the governor’s staff really does its homework well,”
thought Sylvan, but he said, “Well go ahead, what you need?”
The governor told Sylvan that the state was dedicated to the
highest standards of ethical behavior by all its public employees
at all levels, and the state was very desirous that taxpayer
money always be spent in the most efficient manner. If the
money on grant programs was spent efficiently, more grant
money would be available for worthwhile projects. Soon he had
Sylan talking, and soon the words flowed out of Sylvan’s
mouth. Sylvan had been in the municipal bureaucracy for over
20 years, and he, too, was dedicated, and right’s right, and
wrong’s nowhere as far as he was concerned. He revealed what
he knew, and in fact, he knew a lot. He also gave names and
places and indicated where what he said could be verified. He

5. simply spilled his guts.
Governor Phillipson offered his warmest appreciation for his
help, and he told Sylvan to be sure to stop by when he got to the
capitol the next time. Sylvan was also told that if he ever
needed help on anything not to hesitate to call the governor’s
office. The governor called him a brave and treasured
government employee. “We need more like you,” the governor
said.
The next week the city manager, Fred Gardner, send a short
note to the staff of the department of community development.
It simply said that Rose Almindinger had resigned to work full-
time on her state legislative campaign, and that the assistant
city manager, Franklin Millard, was going to be acting as the
director of the department for the near future, until a
replacement could be made. Also all professional staff of the
department was being given a 1-week leave of absence without
pay, during which time the state attorney general’s staff would
be conducting an audit of department expenses. Other staff were
directed not to speak to anyone about the affairs of the
department—especially the press.
Andrew Sylvan immediately made an appointment with the city
manager. When he talked to him the next day, he found the
manager to be quite distant to him, although he had been on
friendly terms with Gardner for 3 years. He asked about the
vacancy at the top of his department, indicating that he had
been with the department for over 10 years and he had his
M.P.A. degree. He suggested that he was quite familiar with the
work and all the people in the department. Gardner simply told
him that at this time it would not be wise for him to consider
applying for the opening. He added that under the circumstances
they would probably be going outside for a new director. Sylvan
left the office quite unsettled. A few days later he saw Gardner
at a popular restaurant in Greenwood and he approached him

6. ready to shake his hand and say hello. The manager clearly saw
him and turned away from him in an awkward manner as he
approached. It was a very obvious rebuff. Sylvan, whose wife
was with him, was hurt.
Three weeks later, the city manager publicly announced that an
audit had found some normal accounting mistakes in the books
of the community development department, but that the attorney
general’s report revealed no wrongdoing on the part of city
staff.
Not only was Sylvan out of the loop for a promotion, but at the
end of the year he received only a satisfactory evaluation. Every
year before—for 20 years with the city—he had received either
commendable or excellent ratings. He was also notified that he
would not receive any merit pay, although over half of the staff
did receive merit pay. Over the ensuing months since his
discussion with the governor, Sylvan noticed that other
employees around his department and at city hall seemed to
avoid him. Even good friends would just say, “Hello” in
passing. As the new year started, he decided he should look for
a position in another department. He saw a lateral opening in
public works, and he submitted a full application. Not only did
he not get an interview, but his application did not even gain an
acknowledgement.
Sylvan talked to a good friend at the community college, and he
was given an opportunity to teach a class during the summer
term. That went so well that he applied for and received a
regular teaching appointment the following year. He had to take
a substantial cut in pay, but his colleagues spoke to him, and his
students especially liked his real life stories about how
bureaucracy really worked.
Governor Phillipson was reelected to a second term, and
afterwards accepted an appointment as a federal district judge.

7. Rose Almindinger found that her campaign for the legislature
was stymied as major funding sources she had counted upon
dried up, and the press came out strongly in favor of Hopper,
the winning candidate. Almindinger went back to work as a
glorified administrative assistant with the state contractor’s
association.
Questions
· 1. Why did the governor allow Sylvan to be punished after he
helped the governor “get the goods” on Almindinger?
· 2. Should Sylvan have remained quiet when he was called by
the governor?
· 3. Should Sylvan have spoken to the city manager as soon as
irregularities were obvious in the neighborhood grant program?
· 4. Would the city manager’s response have been the same if
Sylvan had taken the problems to him?
· 5. Were the governor and attorney general really concerned
about wrongdoing in the community development department,
or was the governor only seeking political advantages in his
inquiries?
· 6. Should Sylvan have taken his situation to the local press?
What would they have done with his story?
· 7. How do you suppose Judge Phillipson would rule if a
whistle-blower case was brought to his bench?
1See Riordan, William.
Plunkitt of Tammany Hall
. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press, 1994.