Nebraska auditor presses state retirement agency for answers on outgoing director’s pay

LINCOLN — With no clear answers from the Nebraska Public Employees Retirement Board on the continued pay for its seemingly absent executive director, State Auditor Mike Foley said he is growing frustrated.

“The board is completely abdicating their fiduciary responsibility to the state, to the employees, to retirees,” Foley told the Examiner. “I’m very upset about this.”

NPERS current executive director Thomas Pfeifle submitted his resignation to the board on Sept. 21 after roughly three months leading the agency, saying he wanted to be closer to his children in Colorado. His resignation letter set his last day as Oct. 31, which the board approved at a special meeting Sept. 30.

NPERS staff have said Pfeifle has not worked in the NPERS office since Sept. 21. According to an Oct. 6 report from Foley, Pfeifle turned in his state cellphone, keys, laptop and identification, and ceased “all further interactions with the agency that day.”

Foley’s report estimated that NPERS would be paying Pfeifle roughly $23,000 in salary and benefits for roughly five weeks of unperformed work. Emails Foley sent to the Examiner show Pfeifle has already been paid roughly $7,800 — before deductions — for one payroll period since then, with several paychecks still to come.

To Foley’s knowledge, Pfeifle has put in zero hours of work since Sept. 21, and his pay has been distributed across his multiple pension plans.

“It’s just truly an assault on the taxpayers of Nebraska,” Foley said.

Pfeifle started working for NPERS in mid-June, earning an annual salary of $205,000, equivalent to about $98 per hour, according to Foley. His employment ended an 18-month stretch of NPERS being without an executive director after the resignation of John Murante in December 2024.

Foley said paying Pfeifle for unperformed work also implicates the Department of Administrative Services in what he alleges was an illegal payroll. Foley said NPERS officials had to coordinate with DAS to approve the payroll without Pfeifle logging any hours.

“An agency that reports directly to the governor has now approved a payroll for this man knowing full well he did not work those hours,” Foley said.

DAS Director Lee Will did not respond to a request for comment.

Foley recommended the board reconsider their decision to continue paying Pfeifle. At its latest meeting on Monday, it’s unclear whether the board took any action on Foley’s recommendation because most of their discussion about leadership happened behind closed doors.

The retirement board did not discuss Pfeifle during its public meeting, but it did address personnel matters, pending legal matters and “protection of public interest” among other items during a nearly two-hour executive session.

After the executive session, the board authorized NPERS legal counsel Tag Herbek to hire a consultant to aid in the search for a new executive director. Herbek said in an email that he will serve as interim director until further notice.

When asked if the board planned to make any changes in response to Foley’s concerns, Herbek said: “The board is always open to reevaluating agency operations when it will improve service and efficiency.”

Foley said he asked Herbek directly about Pfeifle’s pay, and he simply replied “no comment.” He said the board ultimately did comment by approving Pfeifle’s pay.

Foley said NPERS officials have also refused to share a document they received from the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office expressing an opinion on Pfeifle’s payment plan. He said he still intends to access that document, as it’s within his purview as auditor.

“Our statutes are very, very strong regarding access to all records,” Foley said. “It doesn’t say ‘some of the records’ or ‘most records.’ It says ‘all records,’ and I will see all the records of what really happened here.”