A whistleblower from the state workers' compensation agency wasn't fired Wednesday, but the agency did demand he account for his actions before deciding whether they will terminate his employment.

Workforce Safety and Insurance Acting Executive Director John Halvorson e-mailed a letter to Jim Long, chief of support services, in response to Long's request for information regarding his employment status. The letter, obtained by the Tribune, listed several "serious concerns"with Long's conduct and behavior, and requested he submit a response within five business days.

Long was put on paid administrative leave in mid-November, after filing for whistleblower protection with the state and submitting allegations of employee preference, circumvention of open records laws, inappropriate salary increases and inappropriate employee designations to the attorney general's office.

He later submitted a 26-page document to the Highway Patrol, which contained further allegations of circumvention of open meetings laws and defamation, among other things.

Long requested reinstatement several times, always asking for clarification of his employment status; he sent another request on Monday, adding several large open records requests to the e-mail.

WSI legal counsel requested guidance from the state attorney general's office, apparently attempting to decide what legal liability they faced if they terminated Long's employment. The most recent e-mails, obtained by the Tribune, indicated Jodi Bjornson, legal counsel for WSI, may have met with Tag Anderson of the attorney general's office a week ago.

In response to Long's requests for information, Halvorson wrote that Long must provide input on several concerns about Long's performance.

"The concerns with your inability to accept and conform to direction from the Acting/Interim CEO, your inability to maintain acceptable boundaries with subordinates, your inability to foster a team approach required in your position, your inability to effectively lead, your lack of judgment …"contributed to the decision to put him on leave with pay while the agency reviewed his employment status, Halvorson stated.

First, the letter refers to a memorandum Long sent to the attorney general, in which Long requested protection for reporting several perceived violations.

"In this memo, you made some serious allegations that this agency needed to investigate to determine if the allegations were true, and, if so, to take the necessary corrective action,"Halvorson wrote. He went on to describe how Long initially refused to provide the document he had submitted to the Highway Patrol, but added that WSI found no merit in the allegations outlined in his whistleblower letter.

Halvorson further questioned why Long later provided the document to the media; indeed, on Jan. 23, Long turned the document over to the media after determining with his attorney that the highway patrol was not investigating its contents. Further, Halvorson expressed concern with Long referencing sensitive employer information and sensitive internal investigations.

Halvorson also questioned whether Long, if reinstated, could reestablish his relationship with the WSI board, acting CEOand executive team.

"Do you still maintain that the entire Board that governs this agency's functions should resign?" Halvorson wrote. "If you no longer believe that the entire Board should resign, explain how it is you intend to repair your relationship with the Board after seemingly alleging corruption of the Board."

The letter goes on to describe apparent difficulties "accepting direction from the Acting CEO, " although there was no detail given; later, Halvorson also described "boundary issues"with subordinates.

Tom Tuntland, attorney for Long, said they are in the process of crafting a response.

But he had cause for concern with WSIgiving the letter to the media.

"That's how we manage things there, is in the press?"Tuntland said, adding that Long only brought things to the press when he realized his allegations were not being investigated outside of WSI.

"The only thing Jim could do to get an investigation, or to get a response … was to go public,"Tuntland said.

He continued, saying WSI had several opportunities to respond privately to Long, adding that the agency seemed to want to turn all of its issues onto the employee.

"Jim is an employee of the public, trying to get public work done and what he believes are public offenses investigated,"Tuntland said. "Now they are trying to turn this so it looks like Jim is doing something wrong. And that is bull."

Click here to read a copy of the letter.