Two in-house attorneys with Texas' funeral oversight agency have told KERA News they were fired last week after they publicly supported the agency's ousted former executive director and his allegations of unethical behavior by commission leadership.
Staff attorneys Christopher Burnett and Sarah Sanders say they and deputy director Laura Rhinehart, who were all hired by former executive director Scott Bingaman, were fired July 21 at the direction of TFSC Presiding Officer Kristin Tips. Gov. Greg Abbott appointed Tips head of TFSC last year. She is the president and funeral director of Mission Park Funeral Chapels, Cemeteries, and Crematories in San Antonio.
"Our crime? We also spoke out against the corruption, entitled self-dealing, and astronomical incompetence of the current commission, just like Bingaman," Burnett wrote in a letter to KERA.
KERA reached out to Tips for comment last week and had not received a response Monday. Interim Executive Director Maria Haynes declined to comment. KERA also sent written questions on Friday to Steven Ogle, an assistant attorney general representing the commission in court, and had not received a response Monday.
Burnett and Sanders have publicly backed Bingaman, who before he was fired alleged Tips used her public position to lobby for bills during this year's legislative session that would serve her own personal interests within the funeral industry.
Those fired also have blamed current and former commissioners for frequent employee turnover and licensing backlogs. Sanders also accused Tips of misinterpreting state law to control the commission's legal department.
The firings are the latest development in an ongoing, months-long feud between some staffers and TFSC's governing board, which, along with the agency's investigation into a North Texas mosque's funeral practices, has drawn scrutiny for the state's funeral authority.
Bingaman's accusations
Bingaman had 13 years of experience in a variety of state government roles before joining TFSC, according to his LinkedIn profile.
In a letter to commissioners June 17, Bingaman said Tips told him to write to Abbott's office in January to call for "self-serving" and "misleading" changes to state law as part of Abbott's Small Business Freedom Initiative.
This included a call for the legislators to overturn a Texas Supreme Court decision that allows plaintiffs to recover mental anguish damages in lawsuits against funeral homes. Bingaman said this would benefit Tips, who's been sued along with her husband after accusations that their business switched the body of a San Antonio mother with another woman and destroyed another woman's urn and ashes.
Bingaman also alleged Tips testified in favor of capping damages in these cases in front of the Legislature twice and tried to insert that measure into an unrelated bill.
And Bingaman requested that TFSC have rulemaking authority over crematories and cemeteries and that the Legislature repeal a bill that requires companies to ask a city or county for permission to establish or use a cemetery within their boundaries.
All this, Bingaman said, would help Tips personally.
"This letter, submitted to Governor Abbott under my signature, supported Tips's own personal interests using agency resources to do so," Bingaman wrote. "This is a serious conflict of interest and a breach of public trust."
But the "rot" within the commission isn't limited to Tips, Bingaman said. He cited a letter from former executive director James White, who raised red flags about the agency allegedly discriminating against veterans and resisting change.
Abbott's office did not respond to KERA's requests for comment. Bingaman's attorneys did not make him available for an interview.
Bingaman's firing
After his nine months with the agency, commissioners voted to fire Bingaman at their June 18 meeting. He then sued the commission earlier this month, claiming commissioners failed to report Tips' illegal lobbying and commissioners violated the Texas Whistleblower Act by firing him after he reported the commission's actions to the governor.
Bingaman also alleged commissioners violated the Texas Open Meetings Act by discussing his termination in closed executive session after he requested in writing that the discussion happen in an open meeting. Commissioners used last week's meeting to talk openly about why they chose to fire Bingaman.
Eric Opiela, an attorney and commission member, said he felt Bingaman was dishonest in their conversations about who to hire as TFSC's in-house attorney. Under state law, the Texas Attorney General's Office must designate one of its employees to represent the commission in legal matters.
Bingaman wanted to fire that OAG representative and said Governor Greg Abbott's office was OK with that decision, Opiela said. But the commissioner said he worried TFSC would be running afoul of state law with that move, so he independently checked with Abbott's office on how they felt and alleged Bingaman had lied.
"I have concerns with lack of candor with Mr. Bingaman," Opiela said. "I'll just say, I feel gaslit."
However, in an interview with KERA News, Sanders said the law doesn't prevent TFSC from appointing its own general counsel.
Sanders alleges Tips wants to keep Assistant Attorney General Helen Kelley as the commission's head attorney to further control the agency. Bingaman hired Burnett as the commission's in-house counsel, and Sanders said neither Tips nor Kelley would stand for it.
"Opiela used the word 'gaslight,'" Sanders said. "Well, I feel gaslit by Mrs. Tips. We all do. And I believe unfortunately that the rest of the commissioners are also victims of Mrs. Tips because they appear to have been severely misled."
Opiela also said he received a folder full of letters in May from attorneys and other people interested in suing TFSC "over the actions that were taken in March," and Opiela was concerned that Bingaman's actions exposed TFSC to liability over its administrative procedures.
Opiela didn't specify what those actions were, but in March, Bingaman signed off on a cease-and-desist letter, sent to the East Plano Islamic Center accusing the mosque of operating as a funeral home without a license and ordering EPIC to stop. EPIC sued TFSC over that letter earlier this month, and TFSC soon issued another letter allowing EPIC to continue performing funeral and burial rites for its congregants.
Sanders, who was the staff attorney overseeing that case, said she could not comment on the specifics as it's an ongoing investigation and she doesn't want to violate attorney-client privilege. Opiela declined to comment.
Commissioners also said Bingaman was a poor leader and didn't communicate well with the board. They cited significant delays in licensing crematories and Bingaman's letter to commission members blaming failures within the agency on them — and especially Tips — as examples.
When commissioners asked Bingaman or a representative for him to indicate whether they were in attendance during the meeting, no one spoke up.
Targeted?
Sanders said she was approved to take vacation time on July 21. Then, she said, TFSC Interim Executive Director Maria Haynes emailed her that that vacation time was never approved and threatened Sanders with discipline if she didn't come in for work.
So, Sanders said she went to work. She said she and other staffers were waiting for the board meeting to start. But staffers — many of whom support Bingaman — weren't allowed in the meeting, Sanders said.
After the meeting ended, Sanders said Haynes handed her, Burnett and deputy director Rhinehart termination letters and state troopers walked them out of the building. Haynes read staffers a letter instructing them not to speak to the media, Sanders said, and she believes that note — along with the email threatening discipline — was written by Tips.
"I was the last one escorted out because I was going around hugging my colleagues goodbye," Sanders said. "'Cause, you know, I'm truly friends with the whole team, and it was really heartbreaking."
Sanders said Tips might be orchestrating regulatory capture. That's when a regulatory agency becomes dominated by the businesses it regulates.
"Does Mrs. Tips not want the agency to function?" Sanders said. "Does that benefit her? Because she gets sued a lot for negligence at her funeral homes, but you don't see a lot of discipline on her. And I wonder if we had a more functional legal team, if we had a more functional agency, would that continue?"
Burnett, he used much of his own statement on July 21 to criticize commissioners for how they handled the meeting. He said commissioners were blaming Bingaman for their own shortcomings.
"The relentless employee turnover and firings, bad morale, incompetent inspections, and inept or non-existent implementation of legislation lies not with Mr. Bingaman," Burnett wrote.
Got a tip? Email Toluwani Osibamowo at tosibamowo@kera.org. You can follow Toluwani on X @tosibamowo.
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