Bray

In his first 22 months as Rhode Island’s adjutant general, Maj. Gen. Robert T. Bray spent at least 130 days out of state at conferences, ceremonies and on military trips, at times collecting two paychecks –– his state salary plus pay from the federal government.

From the time he was hired by Rhode Island on Feb. 26, 2006, to the end of 2007, Bray took dozens of trips and was paid $110,246 by the federal government and $171,855 by the state.

The majority of Bray’s trips are to conferences, but he also travels for military graduations and to see Rhode Island troops in Iraq, Germany and the United States when they return from service. He was out of Rhode Island for almost 7 of his first 22 months.

The Journal received information about Bray’s travel and pay through open records requests to the state and the federal governments.

Governor Carcieri declined to speak to The Journal last week when asked, through his spokesman, for comment on Bray’s travel and his pay. “Based on the information we have at this time, Governor Carcieri does not believe that the concerns you have raised have merit, and he continues to support Robert Bray in his role as Adjutant General,” his spokesman Jeff Neal wrote in an e-mail Friday afternoon.

An adjutant general has two roles, state and federal.

One is as a full-time state employee. Rhode Island’s adjutant general is appointed by the governor to a four-year term to lead the Rhode Island Air and Army National Guard. By state law, the adjutant general is chief of staff to the governor — subordinate only to the governor — “in matters pertaining to the military and naval affairs of the state.” In Rhode Island, the general also oversees the state Emergency Management Agency.

The second role comes in when the general works for the federal government as a commanding general of the National Guard. He is paid by the federal government, which allows every adjutant general 60 days of paid leave for various training, conferences and military duty.

Bray hasn’t responded directly to several requests from The Journal since April to discuss his travel and pay records. When reached on his cell phone April 15, he declined comment.

Rhode Island National Guard spokesman, Lt. Col. Denis Riel, said that Bray was on leave last week to visit his son, who had just returned from Afghanistan. Regarding Bray’s travel, Riel said, it’s “critically important” for the adjutant general to travel and advocate for Rhode Island’s interests at the national level.

Before coming to Rhode Island, Bray was a deputy commanding general at Fort Sill, Okla., the Army field artillery center. “During the general’s tenure, he has been able to save our Field Artillery Battalion command and has lobbied for numerous initiatives with respect to additional or more relevant mission sets for the Rhode Island Army National Guard,” Riel wrote in an e-mail in April. “The Air National Guard is aggressively pursuing an Associate Wing initiative whereby we would share our Quonset Point aircraft and facilities with active duty personnel, thereby posturing our state the ability to retain critical airlift capabilities.”

Bray did not respond to an e-mail, sent Friday, asking him to outline his accomplishments in Rhode Island.

It is difficult to assess Bray’s tenure at the Rhode Island National Guard. Although state law requires the adjutant general to complete an annual report for the governor and General Assembly by Jan. 1, the most recent annual report is from 2004, according to the state library.

WHEN BRAY was appointed as adjutant general in February 2006, the South Dakota native became the first non-Rhode Islander in decades to lead the Rhode Island National Guard. He was selected after a nationwide search conducted in the months after Maj. Gen. Reginald Centracchio retired.

Governor Carcieri touted Bray for his 35 years of experience in the National Guard and his background in the fire service as a former division fire chief in Sioux Falls. Bray and his wife moved to Rhode Island, but he is still registered to vote in Sioux Falls, according to the South Dakota Secretary of State’s office.

The state paid Bray $96,283 last year and $75,572 for the 10 months he worked as adjutant general in 2006. The military paid Bray $58,907 last year and $51,339 in 2006.

Bray’s travel began early in his tenure as adjutant general. During an interview with a Journal reporter on March 23, 2006, three weeks after being appointed, Bray mentioned that he’d just been to a conference for adjutants general. In May 2006, he was out of state for 14 days traveling to Virginia, the Bahamas, and Germany. He spent half of June 2006 out of state –– in Miami, Williamsburg, Va., and a week-long trip to Camp Victory, Bagdad.The federal National Guard Bureau allows adjutants general to decide how they want to use their 60 paid days each fiscal year. By April 2007, seven months into the federal fiscal year, Bray alerted the Guard bureau that he would exceed the 60 days. He requested 20 more days so he could go to Germany to “oversee training of AF Unit during War Fighter,” to Fredericksburg, Va., for a Rhode Island Army National Guard staff trip to “build esprit de corps,” and to Alaska, Orlando and Puerto Rico, for various military conferences. His request was approved.

ON DEC. 26, The Journal filed a request under the federal Freedom of Information Act for copies of Bray’s federal temporary duty orders, his travel vouchers, and memorandums of his requests to the National Guard Bureau for additional federal duty during 2006 and 2007. The Journal also asked for readiness reports filed for the Army National Guard and Air National Guard, which show the Rhode Island Guard’s preparedness to deploy.

The response from the Rhode Island National Guard was slow and incomplete.

The Rhode Island Guard asked for a 10-day deadline extension on Jan. 24, and then on Feb. 5 the Guard sent The Journal’s requests to the National Guard Bureau in Arlington, Va., and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service in Indianapolis. The National Guard Bureau released some documents on March 18, and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service followed with the travel vouchers on April 1.

For every federal military trip, there are two forms required –– a travel order explaining the reason for the trip and a travel voucher that documents the expenses. The Guard released many of Bray’s travel orders and vouchers, but not always both for every trip he took.

The Journal never received the readiness reports. The Rhode Island National Guard said it sent the request to the Pentagon, but the Pentagon told a lawyer for The Journal that it never received the request.

While state controller Larry Franklin faxed over Bray’s employment attendance sheets to The Journal on Jan. 14, three days after being asked, the records only showed when Bray took vacation, personal days, and one sick day. Bray is allowed 10 vacation days and 4 personal days each year.

On Feb. 20, The Journal filed a request under the state Access to Public Records Act to Todd Tinkham, the administrative manager of the executive military staff, for information about Bray’s military leave and travel. The state legal counsel asked for a deadline extension, and on March 28, sent The Journal 13 pages of employment attendance records showing when Bray had taken state-paid military leave.

Those days were not listed on the state controller’s records given to The Journal in January. Franklin said he had searched for an accounting of Bray’s military-training leave days, and he was at a loss to explain why they didn’t appear on his records.

Bray used some of his state-paid military leave for his trips, and also some vacation and personal days during bi-weekly periods when he was traveling. However, the state refused to reveal the exact dates of Bray’s vacation and personal days, leaving it unclear whether he was using those days to cover his military duty. The federal records received by The Journal are incomplete and do not reflect some days when Bray took some state-paid military leave.

RHODE ISLAND Guard personnel typically work a 35-hour week, Tuesdays through Fridays, but Bray has the leeway to work other days, according to Tinkham.

“The General works anywhere between 35 to 70 hours a week,” Tinkham wrote April 22 in an e-mail response to The Journal’s questions. “Set days and times are set by him, as long as he works 35 hours in that week. …

“The adjutant general under perfect conditions would follow the Guard schedule. However, there are no perfect working conditions for his position when he not only works throughout the day, he attends many outside functions (weeknights as well as weekends) in his capacity of adjutant general, commanding officer, and Director of RIEMA to name a few responsibilities,” he wrote.

Bray’s trips frequently occurred on weekdays, often leaving him only weekends or one weekday in Rhode Island. According to his federal travel records and his state attendance sheets, there were several weeks that Bray was in Rhode Island only a day or two –– or not at all –– although he didn’t take any leave from the state.

The governor’s office on Friday declined to answer questions about whether it is allowable for Bray to receive pay from both the state and the federal government for some work weeks.

Similar questions were raised in 1994. Then-Adjutant General N. André Trudeau acknowledged that he was paid by the state for days and weeks while he was on assignment for the military. Trudeau said he made up for being away by working nights and weekends for the state.

His former second-in-command filed a complaint against Trudeau with the Rhode Island Ethics Commission over alleged double-dipping, and former military officials testified that Trudeau’s actions were unethical in their opinion. The state Labor Relations administrator at the time, John Turano, told the Ethics Commission that employees such as Trudeau “are not entitled to accumulate comp time and that they are required to work at least 35 hours a week.”

The commission dismissed the complaint, ruling that the former auditor general and top officials in former Gov. Bruce Sundlun’s administration had allowed the double pay.

Retired Maj. Gen. Reginald Centracchio, who took over as the adjutant general in 1995 when Trudeau was not reappointed, said he was always careful to take leave from the state when he reported for federal military duty. Centracchio asserted that: “If you are activated for federal duty, you cannot be on the state payroll. It’s the state rule.”

State personnel rule 5.0641 allows full-time state employees, including the adjutant general, to take up to 15 days of state-paid leave while on active duty for the military during the federal fiscal year; after that, the employee is granted unpaid leave. State Department of Administration lawyer Peter Dennehy cited the rule in a March 28 response to The Journal’s request for information about Bray’s military leave and travel.

“As part of the personnel and payroll process, state employees are required to submit a weekly attendance report. In this report the employee must state the hours that the employee worked that week,” Dennehy wrote. “An employee is also required to identify any exception to weekly hours worked, including any leave that the employee has discharged. For example, in the event that an employee discharges military training leave, the days on which such leave was discharged are noted in the attendance reports.”

For several of Bray’s trips, there is no indication on his state time sheet that he was away on federal military orders.

STATE RECORDS show that Bray has taken only one sick day through the end of 2007. It was Dec. 13, the day a snowstorm crippled Rhode Island and left 100 Providence schoolchildren stranded on buses for hours. The outcry over the poor response prompted Governor Carcieri, who was in Iraq at the time, to say Bray should have taken the lead in communications. Asked about his whereabouts during the storm, Bray said, “I was in an advisory role.” He did not say he had called in sick. That was revealed later by Robert J. Warren, the state EMA’s executive director, whom Carcieri and Bray fired on Dec. 18.

After the snowstorm, Carcieri said he wanted Bray to lead the state’s response to an emergency when the governor is away.

Centracchio said he didn’t often travel during his 10 years leading the Rhode Island Guard because he didn’t want to be away during an emergency. It was a lesson learned from the Blizzard of ’78, when he and then-adjutant general Maj. Gen. Leonard Holland were out of state and struggled for days to return. “It was an unwritten rule at the time that you need to be away as little as possible, and if you are away, you have to make damn sure you can get back quickly,” Centracchio said.

amilkovi@projo.com