John Heltzel has resigned as director of Kentucky Emergency Management following a state auditor's report alleging that the agency misused public money.Beshear announced Heltzel's resignation in a statement on Thursday afternoon. Heltzel's agency is accused of spending more than $100,000 on parties and other disallowed expenditures, plus threatening employees and altering documents. You can read state Auditor Adam Edelen's report here.Speaking in Louisville on Wednesday, Beshear said: “At this point, we haven’t taken any options off the table and we’ll make a decision after we review the report."He was responding to a direct question about whether Heltzel should be fired.Mike Jones, the administrative officer for Military Affairs, will serve as acting director."His first task will be to create a corrective action and implementation plan for issues identified in the Auditor’s report," Beshear said in the news release.Here is the governor's full statement:
Kentucky Emergency Management Director John Heltzel Resigns Amid Controversy
![](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/aa9a5ff/2147483647/strip/true/crop/184x223+0+0/resize/880x1067!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Flegacy%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2013%2F08%2FBGHeltzel.jpg)