FWP chief takes responsibility for toxic culture at wildlife agency

At a Legislative Audit Committee meeting Thursday, lawmakers had their first chance to address a scathing report that showed more than half of Montana’s game, fish and wildlife wardens fear retaliation and believe the culture in the department is bad, while state auditors found a dearth of required personnel records.

In an audit report released earlier this month, auditors found that since 2020, wardens described eroding trust between the wardens and upper management, centralized in Helena, and when auditors tried to examine the paperwork, most of it was missing or never completed by a succession of five human resources directors within the past decade.

On Oct. 5 in front of lawmakers, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Director Dustin Temple said that leadership is solely responsible for the toxic culture, and since his appointment earlier this summer, he said management and leadership has taken strides to identify the troubling aspects of the audit.

“The failure belongs to agency leadership and leadership alone,” Temple said.

Later on Thursday, the Legislative Audit Committee added an audit to the staff’s schedule, authorizing it to do a full performance on the human resources portion of FWP, including a focus on whether the culture in the department was changing. That motion carried nearly unanimously, with only Sen. Chris Friedel, R-Billings, in opposition.

“This really sends a message to all agencies that if we see potential problems, we’re solving and not being slow in responding,” said Sen. Jason Ellsworth, R-Hamilton, who is also the Senate President.

Temple is a pilot and said his background as one helps explain what happened within the department: A series of bad decisions led to a larger problem of cratering trust and communication, part of which the audit documented, including inappropriate relationships and leaked confidential human resources reports.

“This is a whole series of bad decisions,” Temple said. “It’s a failure of leadership, and today, that leader is me.”

Even though the audit detailed the problems from software and data collection to the lack of records, Montana lawmakers also heard how the department was responding, including contracting with Montana State University to conduct culture and climate surveys, the results of which will be presented to the audit committee.

Enforcement chief Ron Howell also told lawmakers that the number of wardens who feel like there’s still a problem with the culture in the division has been cut in half since Temple and he took over in leadership.

“Leadership is about relationships, and relationships are leadership,” Howell said. “We have to address them, and it has to be built upon trust.”

Howell said at a recent meeting of enforcement officers he said they should expect honesty, transparency and inclusiveness, while he told them he would need them to prioritize quality over quantity as well as focus on consistency.

“I promised them three things and asked two things from them,” he said.

Two union leaders, including Fraternal Order of Game Wardens President Dirk Paulsen, said since the audit, there’s been “a wholesale change.”

“We would like to thank and recognize the tenacity of the auditors, and they shined a light on the problems which created mistrust and a sense that their work was not valued,” Paulsen said. “This prompted positive change and decreased fear of retaliation. The FWP has taken this seriously.”

Temple also addressed a concern raised in the audit report about various memoranda of understanding the department had brokered with sheriff’s departments throughout the state. The report said that some of the seven regional offices had signed memoranda that also deputized game wardens as sheriff’s deputies.

In the report, it said the department entered into these contracts as a means of expedited law enforcement. In many smaller or rural counties, sometimes wardens who come across violations of law not related to wildlife, for example, driving under the influence, would also require a law enforcement officer to be called. The department explained that by having the wardens also sworn as peace officers, they could handle the situations without taxing the limited resources of rural counties.

However, wardens also pointed out to auditors that the move to deputize wardens led to a culture of law enforcement rather than wardens, leading to what the department described as the “cops-versus-cowboy” identity crisis that may have contributed to the concerns of a toxic culture.

Temple told the Legislative Audit Committee that FWP has decided to let those memoranda expire without renewing them as a means to help refocus the wardens’ work.

“That not what we do. That’s not what we ask them to do,” Temple said.

Darrell Ehrlick is the editor-in-chief of the Daily Montanan, a nonprofit newsroom. To read the article as originally published, click here.