Lisa Nisenfeld, former president of the Columbia River Economic Development Council from 2011 to 2013, was fired this week as head of Oregon’s Employment Department.
The Oregonian reported that Oregon Gov. Kate Brown fired Nisenfeld days after a state audit raised concerns about security lapses and tax troubles involving the department’s aging computer systems.
The Employment Department struggled with computer and morale problems at the time Nisenfeld was appointed by then-Gov. John Kitzhaber in 2013. Nisenfeld led a reorganization of the department but the Oregon Secretary of State’s office, in an audit released last month, found some of the same security problems it identified in audits in 2003 and 2012 The Oregonian reported. The new audit also said staffers stopped using a computer report, which kept officials from noticing tax overpayments worth $850,000 in 2014 and potential underpayments approaching $3 million, the newspaper reported.
Nisenfeld spent seven years as executive director of the Southwest Washington Workforce Development Council before becoming CREDC’s fourth president in September 2011.
