Governor Pence says the state bailed early on a public relations contract to rehab the state‘s image because it was no longer necessary.
In his first public comments on last week‘s abrupt termination of a contract with Washington-based Porter Novelli, Pence says he supported the May hiring of the firm to assess potential damage from the just-concluded battle over the new religious-freedom law. But he echoes a statement from economic development officials that near-record jobs numbers indicate the state is doing fine on its own.
Porter Novelli‘s brief period of working for the state encompassed just two federal employment reports. The state gained 20,000 jobs in those reports, a workforce increase of seven-tenths of one percent.
Porter Novelli performed just seven weeks of a planned five-month contract -- its exit came six weeks before what the original contract set out as the minimum term. Pence says the state will take the marketing suggestions the firm made and incorporate them into its internal marketing efforts. He says he‘s awaiting legal guidance on what the state can release publicly to show what it got for the $365,000 it paid the firm.
Pence didn‘t fully resolve speculation that Porter Novelli might have been fired for recommending the addition of gays and lesbians to state civil rights protections. Democrats have urged that step, while Pence and Republican legislative leaders have been noncommittal.
Pence says the topic never came up in any meetings he had with the firm, and notes the firm was hired to make marketing recommendations, not policy proposals.
