COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Ohio House Insurance Committee chairman has begun investigating the firings of a trio of state employees who say they were fired for objecting to their boss's attempts to force her Christian beliefs on them.

In a Thursday letter, Rep. Dan Dodd, a Hebron Democrat, wrote that the Feb. 16 firings by Virginia McInerney, director of the little-known Workers' Compensation Council, were "very troubling."

"I have started gathering information on this matter and plan to utilize all available options to investigate this matter fully," Dodd wrote to Sen. Steven Buehrer, a Delta Republican who chairs the legislative board that oversees the council. Dodd, who also serves on the board, also urged the GOP chairman to formally convene the council to look into the firings.

Dodd's investigation will focus on allegations from the employees -- executive assistant Stephanie Irwin and staff attorneys Kim Finley and Shadya Yazback -- that McInerney fired them after they objected to her repeated attempts to bring religion into the state office. The three were McInerney's entire staff.

The women complained that McInerney declared to the staff that she was sent by God to her job, inquired about their religious beliefs, called them in to pray aloud, cited scripture in her reprimands and said Satan was to blame for obstacles the staff encountered in their jobs. They accused her of wrongful discharge, religious discrimination and harassment, retaliation and age discrimination.

McInerney, 52, on Thursday disputed the employees' claims. "I certainly deny the wrongdoing they are alleging," she said.

However, she declined to discuss the circumstances that led to the firings because the trio may bring a future lawsuit. "It's not advisable for me to go into details about the personnel matters that led up to it," she said.

McInerney did say the women told her on Feb. 10 that they couldn't work for her anymore, but asked for terms in a separation agreement that she couldn't grant under state law. Those included eight weeks severance pay and a confidentiality pact that McInerney said would have violated Ohio's open records law.

McInerney said her counter offer was rejected by the women, leaving her no choice but to fire them on Feb. 16.

Finley on Thursday wouldn't discuss the terms sought by the staffers but said McInerney wasn't interested in trying to reach a settlement. "Instead of trying to negotiate in good faith, she fired us," she said.

Dodd's letter also questions whether McInerney had any "undue influence" on the legislative analyses produced by her staff, noting that one staff member attributed her firing to her inability to recognize McInerney's "divine gift for editing."

McInerney denied ever "authorizing or looking for anyone to modify a document based on partisan lines."