The Department of Corrections has agreed to pay an employee $500,000 to drop his whistle-blower retaliation lawsuit and other actions against the agency. Richard Krupp filed two lawsuits and a State Personnel Board action against the department over a transfer that he says was prompted by his blowing the whistle on sick leave and overtime pay abuses.

Krupp, who still works for the department in the Office of Substance Abuse Programs, said Wednesday he feels that the settlement - along with previous findings by the Personnel Board and the Office of Inspector General - vindicates him.

"Unfortunately, it took a lot of time and effort, and the taxpayers have been paying for all this stuff," Krupp said, estimating that the Department of Corrections has spent $300,000 in legal fees to fight him.

Corrections spokeswoman Margot Bach said the department is not admitting any wrongdoing.

"We still believe these allegations are without merit, but we figured, let's settle this thing to our mutual interest," Bach said.

Formerly the chief of the department's Personnel Automation Section, Krupp in 1998 pushed a demonstration project that he said would help cut down on overtime and sick leave costs. When department officials failed to Embrace his ideas, Krupp provided his data to the Bureau of State Audits.

In January 2000, the audit bureau released a report finding that the department's mismanagement of overtime and sick leave was costing taxpayers $17 million a year. Krupp, in preparing the department's response to the audit, found that the overtime and sick leave costs were still going up - to $105 million for fiscal 1999-2000, according to an inspector general's report on his case.

Corrections officials disputed Krupp's accounting. In September 2000, They then transferred him to another job where all he did was read college students' proposals to interview inmates.

The inspector general and the Personnel Board both characterized the transfer as retaliatory.

Krupp filed a lawsuit in 2002 against the department. He also was seeking compensatory damages at the State Personnel Board. All the legal actions will be dropped as a result of the $500,000 settlement.

Bach said the payment also settles claims filed against the agency by Krupp's wife, a captain in the department. Calla Soon-Krupp was the subject of an internal affairs complaint June 18 as a result of an employee under her command taking a state vehicle home, according to documents obtained by The Bee. No action was taken against her.