MINOT -- North Dakota Securities Commissioner Karen Tyler, who has recently made headlines by collecting nearly $250,000 in salary for two full-time positions in state government, and for an ugly 2022 dispute over office space in the state capitol building, has been employing her daughter in her department for more than three years.

Tyler told me that her daughter, Kathryn Tyler Downing, is "a fully remote worker who resides in MN" and that "she does not spend time in the Securities Department offices, has never worked in the same location as the Commissioner, and is not supervised by the Commissioner."

Downing makes $31.48 per hour and is a full-time employee, which works out to approximately $62,000 to $65,000 per year. Per Tyler, her job title is "Temporary Administrative Support," and her duties are "related to investor education and outreach, industry communications, and website management."

On her LinkedIn profile, Downing lists her title as "Investor Education and Outreach Coordinator." Her previous jobs listed in the profile were customer service representative for Gate City Bank and barista at Starbucks.

Despite the word "temporary" in her official job title, Downing was first hired more than three years ago, on Aug. 19, 2021.

"An expedited health related retirement created the need to quickly fill a position and train the replacement to manage high school and middle school financial literacy programming for the school year about to begin (Fall 2021)," Tyler told me, adding that the original term for the hire was intended to be only for the 2021/2022 school year.

"At the end of the original planned temporary employment period, employment was extended due to the need to find salary cost savings in order to afford the employment of two attorneys for a period of one year," Tyler continued. "To manage this cost, two temporary employees were utilized and two higher cost FTE positions were held open. The original one-year timeline was extended to 18 months due to the Department's enforcement case load and the need to retain two attorneys throughout on-going litigation, as the new attorney did not have adequate securities litigation experience at that time."

Tyler said that neither of the temporary employees, one of which is Downing, was ever considered a candidate for a full-time position. She said Downing's employment is now set to end on Oct. 31, 2024, or two weeks after my initial inquiry into her employment, and about half a year beyond the timeline Tyler offered for her daughter's "temporary" employment.

Tyler's claim that Downing is not under her supervision is significant. North Dakota has an anti-nepotism statute that prohibits state employees from supervising relatives. The law states that a state employee "may not serve in a supervisory capacity over, or enter a personal service contract with" a relative. The statute defines "supervisory capacity" as "the authority to appoint, employ, hire, assign, transfer, promote, evaluate, reward, discipline, demote, or terminate."

The penalty for violating this statute is that all money paid out must be deducted from the state employee's salary.

"The Department's attorney reviewed HRMS policy and the exemption regarding a 'temporary work arrangement necessary to meet a critical and urgent agency need' and the circumstances were determined compliant," Tyler said in response to my questions about this statute, referring to the state human resources department under the Office of Management and Budget.

"Additional considerations to determine compliance were the location of the temporary position and that the Commissioner would not supervise the temporary employee. HRMS has also reviewed the temporary work arrangement and has raised no objections or concerns with the Commissioner," Tyler continued.

How can it be that an employee in the Securities Department isn't under the supervision of the Securities Commissioner? Does Downing's position exist outside of the department's organizational structure? I asked Tyler.

"The Commissioner has three direct reports," she answered. "All other team members, including temporary employees, are supervised by the Department's Supervisor of Examinations and Investigations."