This story was updated with new information on Sept. 23 @ 4:41 p.m.

Maryland lawmakers on Wednesday voted to issue a subpoena to Roy McGrath, Gov. Larry Hogan’s former chief of staff.

The move is part of an investigation into a $233,000 severance package McGrath received when he stepped down as executive director of the Maryland Environmental Service, an independent state agency. McGrath left MES in June to work for Hogan, but resigned from the new job last month after details of the severance package were made public.

The General Assembly’s bipartisan Legislative Policy Committee — co-chaired by Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) and Speaker of the House Adrienne Jones (D-Baltimore County) — unanimously voted to issue the subpoena. The committee is the only legislative body in Maryland that has the authority to issue subpoenas.

“The single highest duty we have as legislators and elected officials is to maintain public trust and protect tax payer money,” said Jones at the start of the virtual meeting.

Hogan, who maintains he had no knowledge of the severance payment, has said he supports the investigation, and along with Democratic lawmakers has called for a financial audit of MES.

“It is clear that there are several issues regarding the governance structure, oversight, and management of the Maryland Environmental Service which must be jointly addressed,” Hogan wrote in a letter to General Assembly leaders on Wednesday.

Hogan has appointed Frederic Smalkin, a retired chief judge of the U.S. District Court for Maryland, as the new secretary of MES’s board of directors.

Hogan also suggested in his letter that lawmakers should consider a number of other actions. First, change the governing structure so that the executive director, deputy director, and other staff don’t serve on the board, and the executive director can’t handpick board members. Second, restore MES as a state agency as part of the Department of Natural Resources so it can be reformed under its existing structure. Another option would be for the legislature to decide to sell MES to the private sector, and the state could monetize on its economic value.

Members of MES’s board of directors have said McGrath misled them to believe that Hogan approved of the severance package, which ultimately led them to vote in favor of the proposed severance.

“We were caught between a rock and a hard place,” board member Billy Addison told lawmakers last month. “It seemed as though we had no choice as he was transferring to a very powerful position that could have a future impact on MES.”

In August, lawmakers unveiled emails and text messages exchanged between McGrath and Beth Wojton, MES’s deputy director at the time, that explained the severance proposal. In the messages, McGrath insists Hogan was OK with the payout.

Wojton resigned and took a severance package which amounted to her salary of roughly $209,000. In 2016, former MES Director Jim Harkins retired from the agency with a severance package of approximately $257,000.

McGrath contends that “zero tax dollars were used” for his severance package, and that the size of the payout is “a standard business practice,” according to a private Facebook post from McGrath obtained by DCist/WAMU.

“Some have incorrectly described both of my recent jobs — as chief of staff for the state of Maryland and CEO at MES — as state jobs. They were not,” McGrath wrote in an op-ed in The Baltimore Sun in August.

Bruce Marcus, McGrath’s attorney, wrote in an email that he intends to review the subpoena and that McGrath is “willing and available to address appropriate questions and to the extent possible, present a full account of relevant events.”

Lawmakers also say there are also roughly $125,000 in reimbursement expenses such as meals; transportation; a Costco membership; and travel to Israel, Italy, and Las Vegas for McGrath, $50,000 of which was reimbursed at the end of his time as the executive director. MES board members say the expenses were not in line with reimbursement policies.

“These practices need to be thoroughly understood and discussed with Mr. McGrath,” Montgomery County Delegate Marc Korman told legislative leaders Wednesday.

McGrath also had former-MES employee Matthew Sherring enroll him in $14,475 worth of courses at Harvard University’s “Senior Executive Fellows” Program. The in-person course switched to a virtual online course and was held between May and June of this year, after he left the agency. McGrath also filed to get reimbursed for those expenses. Sherring has declined to appear before lawmakers as well.

Wojton said there was little justification or documentation for McGrath’s expenditures that he typically put on his personal credit card. “Mr. McGrath was more interested in his own personal image and media persona,” Wojton told lawmakers in hearings last month.

At one point, Sherring told Wojton to not to question McGrath’s expenditures for a leadership conference supported by MES, according to documents from Wojton to lawmakers. Sherring has also declined to testify before lawmakers.

“We also want to interview Mr. Sherring too,” Lam told legislative leaders. “He was brought to MES by Mr. McGrath which calls into question his qualifications for his job at MES.”

The last time the legislature issued a subpoena was over 15 years ago and also involved Hogan, according to the Baltimore Sun. Hogan was serving as the appointments secretary for Gov. Robert Ehlrich Jr., the first Republican governor in more than 30 years. Ehlrich was accused of going too far in orchestrating massive layoffs of long-serving state employees and replacing them with Republican loyalists.

One state employee, Joseph Steffen, Jr. admitted to going to state agencies and finding people to fire. He received the nickname “the prince of darkness.” Steffen, who died in 2017, told lawmakers in 2006 that Hogan helped coordinate the firings, but Hogan maintained he never asked Steffen for advice on who to fire and no one was fired because they were a Democrat.

MES isn’t the first quasi-governmental agency in Maryland to have issues with its board of directors. Senator Jill Carter (D-Baltimore City) said the culture of toxicity calls into question not just MES, but also what sort of personal dealing state officials are taking part in.

Carter said the incident was similar to what happened in 2019 when University of Maryland Medical System’s chairman and two other board members resigned after it was revealed that multiple members, including ex-Baltimore City Mayor Catherine Pugh, had conflicts of interest that went undisclosed.

This story was updated with new information from McGrath’s attorney.