MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Alabama Veterans Affairs Commissioner Kent Davis will resign his post at the end of the year after a “respectful, frank, and informative” meeting with Gov. Kay Ivey Monday, her office said.
This latest development in a months-long interagency dispute comes as the State Board of Veterans Affairs was set to consider Davis’ dismissal on Tuesday. Ivey, who asked for Davis’ resignation last week due to mishandling of funding requests and conflict with agency heads, has cancelled that meeting.
“Our meeting with Commissioner Davis today was respectful, frank, and informative, with both sides gaining new perspective and insight about the challenges each of us face in fulfilling our respective roles,” Ivey said in a statement. “I appreciate Commissioner Davis’s record of service as Commissioner, and I appreciate him doing the right thing for our state and the future of the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs. As I have said before, we have important work to continue doing, and I want to see nothing get in the way of us remaining focused on the thing that truly matters here – improving veterans’ care.”
The Department of Veterans Affairs also released a statement.
“Today, Commissioner Kent Davis had a very cordial and informative meeting with Governor Ivey and her senior staff. This matter has been resolved to the mutual benefit of all parties and we are looking forward to the dedication of the Command Sgt. Maj. Bennie G. Adkins State Veterans Home in Enterprise on Friday.”
A rare inter-agency dust up between the departments of Veterans Affairs and Mental Health spilled out into the public in August when an ethics complaint authored by Davis against Mental Health Commissioner Kim Boswell and others was leaked to the news media. The complaint alleged that Boswell and others worked to improperly scuttle the AVDA/ADMH agreement to coordinate ARPA funds because of some comments critical of Mental Health from John Kilpatrick, a member of the veterans affairs board and director of a Mobile-based veterans recovery clinic that was seeking other state funds. Alabama Daily News later reported that Kilpatrick never made such comments, at least not publicly.
Alabama Ethics Commission Executive Director Tom Albritton later dismissed the complaint saying that, even if proven true, Davis’ allegations didn’t amount to ethical violations. Ivey called the complaint “entirely frivolous,” which portended her displeasure with Davis. She also removed Kilpatrick from the board.
After Davis initially refused Ivey’s request for him to resign, her office released several pages of correspondence and notes documenting myriad concerns over the Department of Veterans Affairs’ proposals for American Rescue Plan Act funding.
Ivey’s office did not respond Monday to a question about the timing of Davis’ ethics complaint and her call for his resignation a month later.
Legislative leaders have backed Ivey’s decision. Both House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter and Senate President Pro Tem Greg Reed last week called for new leadership at the Department of Veterans Affairs. On Monday, Senate General Fund Chairman Sen. Greg Albritton, House General Fund Chairman Rep. Rex Reynolds, along with Chair of the Senate Veterans, Military Affairs and Public Safety Committee Sen. Andrew Jones and Chair of the House Military and Veterans Affairs Committee Rep. Ed Oliver, issued the joint statement calling for Davis to step down.
“We fully agree with Governor Ivey and join her in calling on Commissioner Kent Davis to do the right thing for the department and step down from his position,” the joint statement read. “In recent years, we have had growing concerns and frustration, the most recent example being the agency’s mishandling of its proposed ARPA grant program. This would have been a significant problem had it not been caught by the Finance Department. Fortunately, we were able to quickly resolve the issue by working with the governor to authorize $7 million to veterans groups. Taking care of our veterans in Alabama is too important to let anything stand in the way of that mission. We look forward to a new and even stronger chapter at the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs.”
Veterans leaders react to ‘mess’
Some leaders in the Alabama veterans community voiced disappointment with the resignation.
“It’s a mess,” Lou Lartigue, president of the South Alabama Veterans Council, told Alabama Daily News Monday. “I’m just perplexed by all of this and wish it could be turned around.”
Lartigue was part of a group of veterans who planned to attend a specially called meeting of the board on Tuesday to speak on behalf of Davis.
“We’re very disappointed because (Davis) has been the best commissioner we’ve ever had,” Pete Riehm, president of the Mobile Council Navy League, told ADN Monday.
Reihm, Mobile Bay Area Veteran of the Year in 2020, was organizing a bus trip for what he hoped would be “hundreds of veterans” attending Tuesday’s meeting in support of Davis. He canceled those plans after the resignation announcement.
Albritton, the Senate General Fund chairman involved in much of the state’s ARPA spending, said that, at the end of the day, the system worked and the state did not misappropriate money.
“We need to face the fact that we didn’t lose any money, the state didn’t misappropriate any money,” Albritton, an Air Force and Navy veteran, said. “All the monies, ARPA and others, we’re all appropriately used, and we did well with those monies.”
“Now, if the Finance Department had not caught it and had not taken the appropriate steps, money would have gone out the door and then it would have been a significant problem.”
ADN’s Alexander Willis contributed to this story.