Established in 2005, the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs works with local, state and national partners to provide resources and technical assistance to Indiana’s small towns. (Photo/Pexels.com)
By Sydney Byerly
The Indiana Citizen, INDIANA CAPITAL CHRONICLE
July 21, 2025
As Micah Beckwith took office in January, the Republican lieutenant governor and his aides quickly remade a small state agency he oversees – removing long-time employees at the Office of Community and Rural Affairs to make room for political allies.
The turnover was possible because while the governor oversees most of the executive branch, state law places the lieutenant governor in charge of OCRA and the Department of Agriculture. Beckwith’s hiring at OCRA offers a window into how he sees the task of staffing the state government, including roles in which workers often remain in their positions as administrations change.
He has tapped Republican delegates who backed his bid for lieutenant governor at last year’s state party convention, followers of the church where he is a pastor, a radio personality who interviewed and endorsed him and more.
“This is something that every administration has the right to do,” Beckwith said at a May town hall in Muncie, when he was pressed on the staff changes. “And I’m certainly going to put people around me that I trust – congregants, friends, allies, people that worked on the campaign – that I know I can trust.”
He compared the upheaval at OCRA to presidential administrations, which fill thousands of politically appointed positions every four years. The changes have gone farther this year in Washington, as President Donald Trump’s administration’s efforts to shrink the federal workforce have led to tens of thousands of government employees being fired or bought out. In Indiana, though, Republicans have controlled the executive branch since 2005.
Five of OCRA’s six regional community liaisons – regional staffers who help communities seek grants, identify potentially supportive nonprofits, navigate state and federal government bureaucracy and more to fund economic development projects and quality-of-life initiatives – have either left voluntarily or been forced to resign since January. The sixth is the team lead and has been with the agency since 2006. That staffing shakeup came to the forefront at the Muncie town hall when Garrett Conway, a former OCRA community liaison, confronted Beckwith about his hiring and firing decisions.
Conway said at the Muncie town hall that the Friday before Beckwith and Gov. Mike Braun were inaugurated, he was handed a pre-written letter of resignation and advised by a state HR professional he had no option but to sign it.
Three former staffers contacted by The Indiana Citizen since that town hall, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal, all said they loved their jobs and were blindsided by their terminations. The lieutenant governor’s office did not respond to The Indiana Citizen’s multiple requests for comment.
‘We’re Not Trying To Make Friends’
At the town hall, Conway asked the lieutenant governor how hiring “your friends, your congregants, or your campaign supporters” enforces Braun’s executive order on merit-based hiring, an effort the lieutenant governor has supported.
Former community liaisons said the job requires a deep knowledge of how to apply for and administer grants as well as the ability to build a network of contacts in other agencies, local nonprofits and state and national organizations.
OCRA’s community liaisons often work with rural, low-income farming communities. A large part of their workload involves helping administer applications for the Community Development Block Grant Program, a federal program for rural and low-income areas seeking funding for infrastructure projects such as wastewater plants, fire stations and revitalizing downtown areas. The program awarded 81 grants totaling more than $33 million in Indiana last year, according to OCRA’s 2024 Annual Report.
Doing so requires interpreting and understanding complex federal regulations in order to give those communities technical advice. Mistakes could lead to delays in multimillion dollar projects.
“This is stuff that communities are relying on – that you have accurate knowledge of that kind of stuff,” one former community liaison said. “You have to have a pretty quick turnaround of processing that information and putting it back out.”
Under Beckwith, the number of OCRA community liaisons shrank from six to five – with the west central and east central roles being combined into one, with some counties shifted into different districts to balance liaisons’ workloads.
Beckwith defended the hiring decisions. He said applicants are reviewed to determine their work ethic, competency, knowledge and expertise.
“We’re looking at everyone based on their merit and on their experience and what they’re going to bring to the table,” Beckwith said. “So, just because they know me or they know the director, Fred Glynn, doesn’t mean they don’t have merit.”
Conway pushed back, noting that in 2024, he helped communities in his assigned region bring in between $5 million and $7 million more in federal grants than the next-highest region.
“It doesn’t really add up to me that other people are more qualified when I was the most qualified and had the best outputs of that team,” Conway said to Beckwith.
Beckwith responded that “it’s not just about the money that you bring in. It’s about the culture.”
He pointed to his decision to replace former OCRA executive director Duke Bennett, the former four-term Terre Haute mayor who Beckwith said “seemed like a nice guy,” with Glynn.
“It’s about the new director. It’s about making sure that the team is clicking and working well together,” Beckwith replied. “There’s a lot of things that are sort of non-tangibles when it comes to building a team.”
Glynn, meanwhile, is a former Hamilton County councilman who has made unsuccessful runs for the state House of Representatives and Carmel mayor in recent years. He has followed Beckwith’s Life Church in Noblesville on social media for years, backed Beckwith’s insurgent candidacy for lieutenant governor as a delegate at the 2024 state GOP convention and has praised Beckwith on social media, calling him a “happy warrior” in a 2023 post.
Beckwith said during the town hall that he told Glynn to “get the team that you need, because we’re not trying to make friends within the organization.”
“We’re trying to do the best for the people of Indiana. So I said, ‘Whatever you have to do, you get in there, you do it and you get this thing running like a well-oiled machine,’” the lieutenant governor said.
An OCRA spokesperson did not respond to The Indiana Citizen’s request for comment from Glynn.
Replaced By Beckwith’s Political Supporters
Several of the community liaisons hired this year are actively involved in Republican politics.
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Lindsey Hammond, the new Northeast community liaison, is an Allen County resident and conservative GOP county councilwoman. Hammond was seen with a group of other state convention delegates praying over Beckwith during a Fort Wayne campaign event in June 2024. She also shared a photo posing side-by-side with Beckwith while wearing one of his campaign shirts at the Republican state convention.
Teresa Ayers of Carmel, the Central community liaison, has a background in local and state government. She previously served as the community outreach representative for U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz, of Indiana’s 5th Congressional District, and prior to that, worked as an outreach representative for Attorney General Todd Rokita. Ayers is a member of the Carmel city council, is the vice chair of the Hamilton County Republican Party and is on the Board of the Carmel-Clay Republican Club.
The new Southwest community liaison, Johnny Kincaid of Evansville, is a radio show host and podcast personality. He lost his bid for the Indiana House of Representatives in 2016, running as a Republican.
On Kincaid’s podcast “This Week in Evansville” in April 2024, he interviewed Beckwith and Kristi Risk, the lieutenant governor’s current constituent affairs director, who at the time was running for Congress against now-U.S. Rep. Mark Messmer in the GOP primary for the 8th Congressional District of Indiana. In that interview, Kincaid introduced both Beckwith and Risk as “a couple of his favorite people” and endorsed Beckwith’s bid for lieutenant governor.
“If you are one of the people who winds up becoming a delegate for the state convention, just remember this man,” Kincaid said. “Because I think that Micah is going to be great for the state of Indiana.”
Across the lieutenant governor’s office, Beckwith has surrounded himself with people with whom he had close ties prior to being elected in November.
Many of his staffers in the lieutenant governor’s office live in Hamilton County. Several also appear to be members of Life Church in Noblesville, where he is pastor. Others served as a delegate to the 2024 Republican state convention, when Beckwith captured the nomination for lieutenant governor, or publicly endorsed his candidacy for the state’s second highest office.
Beckwith’s chief of staff, Sherry Ellis of Noblesville, his deputy chief of staff, Gregg Puls of Fishers, and public affairs director, Anthony Simons of Fishers, have all followed Life Church on social media for years.
In a Current Publishing article, Ellis said she had no interest in being involved with politics until she met Beckwith a decade ago at Northview Church in Noblesville, where he was then a worship pastor. The two became acquainted and Beckwith asked Ellis to join him as his treasurer and deputy campaign manager during his failed run for Congress in 2020. He tapped her again to be his campaign manager in his latest run for elected office.
Puls also acted as a Republican state convention delegate. Simons and his wife, Alyssa, both ran for state convention delegate spots for Fall Creek Township.
‘You Hide Behind This Stuff’
Shortly after attending a hastily-called meeting with OCRA officials on January 10 – a Friday, with Braun and Beckwith set to be inaugurated the following Monday – Conway found himself out of a job.
The community liaison said he was called to a meeting with the OCRA chief operating officer and an HR staffer at the Anderson Public Library. At 9 a.m., he was presented with a prewritten resignation and told if he signed the letter, he would be paid for his unused vacation days and he would be able to seek another position with the state. If he did not sign, he would be dismissed and not eligible for rehire by any state agency.
The resignation letter that was given to Conway was dated January 10 and addressed “To Whom it May Concern.” It was just two sentences long, saying that he was resigning as the East Central Community Liaison at the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs effective immediately and that he understood he was resigning his position in good standing.
Conway said he did add a few sentences to the pre-written resignation letter before signing. He penned, “I’ve enjoyed getting to work and support my communities. Community development is incredibly important work and I hope OCRA continues to do it.”
After he signed, the officials took his state-provided phone and laptop and the keys to his state vehicle, he said. Stranded, Conway was forced to call his mother for a ride home.
But once he arrived home, Conway contacted people with whom he’d formed working relationships in his region to let them know what happened and that he didn’t plan to leave them high and dry. He typed out an email to himself processing everything that happened so that he could reflect as time went on.
“The reason that I enjoy public service is because you get to do really cool things (for) people who deserve it, communities who deserve it,” Conway said. “It’s not about income, necessarily. It’s about the outcome.”
Another former OCRA staff member said many employees in the agency were uneasy when Beckwith was elected. The staff member remembered some employees removing personal items from view and hiding the objects in their desks when Beckwith’s transition team visited the office. One employee took a rainbow flag made of LEGOs down and put it in their desk drawer whenever representatives of the lieutenant governor arrived.
“Everybody was on edge as soon as he got elected,” the former staff member said.
A third former OCRA employee shared a similar story about being forced to resign. Like Conway, the former employee was called into a conference with human resources officers and his boss and told he could resign and remain in good standing with the state or be fired.
The state civil service system divides positions into two categories, classified and unclassified. Classified employees generally administer federal programs and can only be terminated for “just cause.” OCRA employees are all in unclassified positions. Often called “patronage” positions, unclassified jobs can be filled as an elected official wants within certain constraints. But firing existing unclassified employees from a prior administration is constrained by U.S. Supreme Court precedent to positions that are considered “confidential” or “policymaking.”
Jeff Macey, an Indianapolis attorney who specializes in labor and employment litigation, said although these employees are considered “at-will,” meaning they can be terminated at any point for any reason, they still have constitutional rights. None of the former OCRA employees have pursued legal action, but Macey said if they have proof that some characteristic about them, including political party affiliation or sexual orientation, made them a target for discrimination, they could have grounds for a lawsuit.
Macey said whether new administrations have “a right to do this” depends largely on the position’s job description, which might reveal whether it would be considered “confidential” or “policymaking.”
“The key thing is the job descriptions,” Macey said. If ousted employees can demonstrate that they were not in “confidential” or “policymaking” positions, he said, “the First Amendment protects them.”
The third former OCRA staff member said a new administration wanting its own people in key positions is not unusual. But, the former employee said, the rate of turnover is much higher than normal for OCRA.
No reasons for the terminations were given to the OCRA team members, the former staff member said.
“If somebody had just stopped and said, ‘Look, you’re doing great work. It’s nothing personal. I have a right to do this. I want to bring my own people in,’ I think most people would still be upset about it, but they’d be like, ‘OK, we all know what the rules are when you deal with politics,’” the former OCRA staff member said. “But it’s when you don’t say a word and kind of hide behind things, and then you want to beat your chest and say, ‘I’m a leader and I’m a strong person,’ and then you hide behind this stuff. It really rubs people the wrong way.”
Conway said he was told after the election that changes of administration rarely affect community liaisons’ employment status at the agency.
“I was told it’s never been an issue and we just sort of go about our business,” he said. “It’s good work, and nobody ever wants to come in and change that … but it wasn’t true this time.”
FOOTNOTE: Sydney Byerly is a political reporter who grew up in New Albany, Indiana. Before joining The Citizen, Sydney reported news for TheStatehouseFile.com and most recently managed and edited The Corydon Democrat & Clarion News in southern Indiana. She earned her bachelor’s in journalism at Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism (‘Sco Griz!).
The Indiana Citizen is a nonpartisan, nonprofit platform dedicated to increasing the number of informed and engaged Hoosier citizens. We are operated by the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) public charity. For questions about the story, contact Marilyn Odendahl at marilyn.odendahl@indianacitizen.org.
