Nineteen employees of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources were paid to attend the funeral service of DNR Commissioner Mark Williams’ mother-in-law on Thursday in Jesup.
Carolyn Arnold Harris, 80, died Tuesday. She was a retired nurse who lived most of her life in Wayne County, according to her obituary. Williams is married to her daughter Pam.
The Commissioner did not request staff attendance at the service, said DNR spokesman Donald Kirkland. Instead, Deputy Director Walter Rabon spoke with division directors and asked them each to designate up to five employees to attend the service.
“Ms. Harris was a longtime supporter of the Department and its mission,” Kirkland wrote in an email. “Approximately 20 DNR employees were in attendance at the celebration of life today to show our support.”
Kirkland pointed to the DNR’s standard operating procedure #610, issued two years ago, to provide guidelines for the staffers attending funerals.
“Ms. Harris is categorized as immediate family,” Kirkland wrote in an email. “Each division was authorized to designate five employees to represent their division, per SOP guidelines.”
Deputy Commissioner Walter Rabon echoed Kirkland’s reply in an emailed statement Monday: “Ms. Harris was a long-time supporter of the DNR. While DNR is a state agency, it is routinely referred to as a family. We support each other in times of loss or need. In accordance with the DNR SOP #610, I felt it appropriate to have each division represented at last...
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