LONG-DISTANCE RELATIONSHIP

Michael J. Mishak

Sunday, Dec. 10, 2006 | 7:42 a.m.

Nevada Board of Finance meetings are generally not the venue for big speeches.

But on Tuesday, in the media room on the second floor of the Capitol annex in Carson City, state Treasurer Brian Krolicki and Gov. Kenny Guinn made an exception.

After nearly two decades of public service in Nevada state government, John Adkins, Krolicki's chief deputy for the past eight years and the board's secretary, was retiring.

"You've done a great job," Guinn said, directing his comments into a telephone at the far end of the conference table.

On the other end of the line was Adkins, listening from his home in Kansas, where for the better part of the past five years he has lived and worked while overseeing Nevada's finances.

How, Guinn asked, had Krolicki been able to keep his chief deputy on the payroll?

Telecommuting, the treasurer said. The results, he added, were "unbelievable."

The same could be said of the agreement that placed operational power of the Nevada treasurer's office in the hands of a retirement-eligible man living on a quiet street in suburban Wichita.

The unusual arrangement, brokered by Krolicki in 2001, raises questions about how the No. 2 official in a major constitutional office - especially one that oversees the state's finances - can fulfill the day-to-day duties of his job from such a remote location.

After all, under Nevada statute, the chief deputy treasurer "shall devote his entire time and attention to the business of his office."

That business, in part, includes analyzing financial transactions, reviewing budgets and evaluating contracts. He's also responsible for overseeing a number of the office's deputies, in addition to serving as secretary to the Nevada Board of Finance.

But for the last year, Adkins, 72, has been drawing half his annual salary while living on a cul-de-sac in Derby, Kan., in the Wichita suburbs, about 1,600 miles from Carson City. There, according to the treasurer's office, he works from home, keeping a daily log of his activities, which mostly seem to consist of making phone calls and writing e-mails.

Overall, Adkins has returned to Nevada just a handful of times this year, mostly to attend meetings and testify at hearings. But his last trip here was more than three months ago, and Krolicki doesn't expect to see his chief deputy again before year's end.

That's when Adkins will retire - five years later than planned.

In 2001, under an obscure state law, Krolicki sought to keep Adkins on the payroll while allowing him to collect a pension.

At the time, Krolicki said he pursued the extraordinary measure, which ultimately did not win state approval, because, after more than a yearlong search, he had been unable to find a qualified replacement.

"John can retire comfortably any time he wants," Krolicki told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in 2001. "But he is of immeasurable value to our office. Any time he comes to work, it's a good day for our office and the state."

But, in the ensuing five years, Adkins showed up in the Nevada treasurer's office at Carson City's Capitol less and less, at first traveling back and forth to the Wichita suburbs, and later moving to Kansas in full.

Personal considerations drove the unusual arrangement. Adkins' mother-in-law in Kansas had fallen ill, suffering several strokes since 2001. She needed constant care.

So the then-67-year-old Adkins, having already served more than a decade in state government, seriously considered retirement. He planned to move to Kansas with his wife. The two even bought a three-bedroom, ranch-style house there in May 2001.

"I thought I would have to retire," Adkins said.

But that August, Krolicki, without a candidate in the wings and seemingly desperate to retain his chief deputy, approved a decidedly unorthodox work arrangement, allowing Adkins to split his time between Nevada and Kansas while collecting his full $82,839-a-year salary.

It was an arrangement that would continue for another three years, during which time Adkins said he worked about every other month in Carson City, where he rented an apartment. He said he worked rigorous 12- to 14-hour days in Nevada to compensate for the time he spent away from the office in Kansas.

He said he also set up, at his own expense, a high-tech home office - his electronic link to the Nevada treasurer's office. "I can do all the operations from here," Adkins boasted Tuesday, speaking from his Derby home. "I can see everything from this position and this office, same as I could if I were sitting in Nevada."

But as his mother-in-law's condition worsened, Adkins found himself in Derby more often. In fact, he spent so much time in Kansas that the treasurer's office asked him to keep daily logs of his activities. And Krolicki seemed to take note, cutting his salary by a third in 2004.

That same year, Krolicki said, he began a national search to find his next No. 2. He said he even hired several deputies, but none of them, it turned out, could fill Adkins' shoes. "I could not find a person to replace him," Krolicki said.

An experienced senior-level bureaucrat, Adkins is certified in the areas of public accounting, cash management and financial planning. He was assistant state controller for two years, before becoming deputy of cash management under former Treasurer Bob Seale during Seale's two terms in the post.

In 2005, Adkins saw a change of pace and a bump back to his full salary, which had grown to $104,000. He stayed in Carson City throughout the 120-day legislative session, even hanging around afterward to hammer out a tax refund plan that reimbursed Nevadans for $300 million in vehicle-registration fees, Krolicki said.

As the year came to a close, Krolicki, concluding that it would be all but impossible to find a replacement in the final year of his term, asked Adkins to stay through 2006. Adkins agreed, on the condition that he would be able to work full-time from his Kansas home, visiting Nevada on an as-needed basis.

As a result, the chief deputy's salary was shaved in half.

The pay cut didn't sit well with Adkins, who had grown accustomed to running the operations of the treasurer's office by phone, fax and e-mail from his home office. "It was a bigger reduction than we thought was necessary," he said. "It wasn't the best of situations."

As Krolicki put it, "If there were other options, we would have taken them. But there was no diminishing of the work product. We did not sacrifice the work product He's doing a great favor for the state."

At Tuesday's Board of Finance meeting, Krolicki praised Adkins for accepting the deal, saying that his chief deputy was making just $700 more a month than he would in retirement. Adkins is eligible to collect a $40,000 pension, he said.

Still, Krolicki's political career seems to have been a factor in Adkins' prolonged tenure.

By the summer of 2005, the term-limited treasurer was gearing up to run for lieutenant governor.

"I was running the treasurer's office and (Krolicki) was doing politics," Adkins said. "So he didn't have anybody to run the treasurer's office if I left."

Adkins said he fulfilled his commitment to Krolicki at considerable personal and financial expense. He said he paid for his own travel and bore most of the cost of the technology in his home office, except for the price of a few printer cartridges and a "scrap" computer, which he says the state picked up.

But after five years, he's clearly proud of the off-site operation he built from the ground up, arguing that - in some ways - the arrangement has made the treasurer's office more efficient.

"I get more work done here than if I were in the office," Adkins said. "With an open door, you can't get as much work done, particularly in the type of work you do at the second level, analyzing transactions and contracts."

He vigorously defended his telecommuting agreement with the treasurer's office.

"It's not unusual," Adkins said. "Why does the second-in-command have to be there (in Nevada)? The public doesn't think that. The taxpayers don't think that because everybody's doing it."

Some good government and public administration experts, however, disagree.

"Taxpayers have a reasonable expectation that they're getting what they pay for when it comes to public servants," said Massie Ritsch, spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan Washington research group focused on good government. "It's easier to think that you're getting that when the public servant is living in the state he's working for."

He said the situation was odd for a full-time government official.

Dr. Jocelyn Johnston, an associate professor of public administration at American University's School of Public Affairs, agreed. "If the job is analysis, you can do that from anywhere," she said. "But if you're expected to manage people, it's a different story. Management-wise, you need to have a presence."

Telecommuting, now a mainstay in the private sector, is becoming more common in the public sector, particularly in the federal government, where there's a drive to attract younger workers and cut costs, said Daniel Pulliam, who covers technology and government for Government Executive magazine.

Still, institutions often restrict telecommuting to rank-and-file employees, he said. "If you're responsible for employees, you have to be in the office," Pulliam said.

Adkins said his duties as chief deputy remained the same in the last five years, and that his physical absence from the treasurer's office did not affect his ability to perform them.

His importance is underscored by the fact that his signature is necessary on most of the office's documents. In fact, Krolicki could recall only a few moves that don't "involve his (Adkins') fingerprints."

He starts his day at 8 a.m. Central time, reading and responding to e-mails from various employees, including the deputies who report to him. He then follows up throughout the day, often using a state-funded cell phone, punching out about 10 p.m. "I'm in the treasurer's office every day," he said.

Adkins said he checks in with Krolicki about once a week, all the while keeping a daily log of his activities. "I tell him the direction we're going and the options we're doing," he said. "If he has objections to them, we correct them. If he doesn't have any objections, we continue on with operations."

While state employees are not bound by residency requirements, Adkins' arrangement is "not typical," said state Personnel Director Jeanne Greene.

In fact, only one other government agency employs out-of-state workers on a full-time, salaried basis, she said. The Department of Taxation retains a number of auditors who live outside Nevada to examine the books of companies that owe sales tax to the Silver State, she said.

Treasurer-elect Kate Marshall said when she spoke with Adkins after the election, he informed her of his impending retirement. "I didn't have to say anything," she said. "He knew quite well that (the Kansas arrangement) wasn't going to work going forward."

Marshall said she already has received a handful of unsolicited resumes from candidates around the country interested in the chief deputy job. Her decision, she said, would be made with one overriding requirement in mind.

"It's very important for me that the office runs as efficiently as possible," Marshall said. "My chief deputy will be full-time on the job - in Nevada."

Sun reporters Cy Ryan and Mary Manning contributed to this report.

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