Senator calls for answers from workers' comp head
Democratic Sen. John Patrick, chairman of the Legislature’s labor committee, said he thinks the head of Maine’s workers’ compensation board was wrong to remove a hearing officer from cases involving NewPage’s Rumford mill, in response to complaints from mill officials.
The Bangor Daily News reported Patrick said Monday that he would ask director Paul Sighinolfi to come before his committee in the coming weeks to answer questions about his decision to instate a rotation of hearing officers for cases involving the Rumford mill. Sighinolfi told the Maine Public Broadcasting Network that the rotation was supposed to include hearing officer Glenn Goodnough, who had previously handled all NewPage cases, but did not because of miscommunications with staff.
Patrick told the BDN Monday that he’s “pretty sure Director Sighinolfi should step down.”
The revelation that Goodnough handled no workers’ compensation cases involving NewPage after the rotation began emerged during a March 11 meeting of the state’s Workers’ Compensation Board. Sighinolfi said in that meeting the decision to start a rotation for NewPage cases was “unilateral” and not influenced by Gov. Paul LePage.
Union officials have connected the case to a controversy last year over LePage’s intervention in the work of unemployment claims hearing officers.
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