County OKs Severance Pay for Top Bosses Who Fall From Favor

Nearly 60 top managers in county government will now be eligible for up to six months severance pay if they are ever fired by the county’s chief administrator, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors decided Tuesday.

The board approved the protection for department directors and their deputies after acting chief administrator David Janssen said the change would help the county recruit better managers and more easily fire those who don’t measure up.

Top officials were stripped of civil service protection a year ago under Proposition A, the voter-approved charter amendment that centralized the county’s day-to-day management in the office of the chief administrator.

Janssen said it was unrealistic to expect qualified managers to serve at the pleasure of the chief administrator without some assurance that they will not be fired abruptly .

“You’re not going to get people to come here if they have to come totally at their own risk,” Janssen said.

He said Norman Hickey, the newly appointed chief administrator who will take over by the end of the month, may want to replace some department directors to form his own management team.

“My feeling is if Norm comes in and there are people here he wants to get rid of, then this would give him more flexibility,” Janssen said.

Before he agreed to take the job, Hickey negotiated a contract with the Board of Supervisors to guarantee that he will be paid the equivalent of six months’ salary if the board fires him before the end of his five-year contract. Hickey’s predecessor, Clifford Graves, did not have such an arrangement but was kept on for six months after the board pressured him to resign on July 3.

Under the new policy, Hickey will have the right to grant the severance pay to 56 executives, which include his assistant, two deputies and 53 department directors and assistants. The benefit is prohibited for employees fired “for reasons of malfeasance in office or conviction of a crime involving moral turpitude.”

Supervisor Brian Bilbray said he thought it was fair to extend to the rest of the top management the same benefits given their boss, which should also improve morale.

Supervisor Susan Golding said that it is common practice in private industry to pay an executive six months’ salary when fired and the policy should work well for the county.

“After Proposition A, they (executives) had nothing,” Golding said. “In the private sector, the top management usually has some kind of severance pay or compensation agreement.”

Terry Daly, wage and salary administrator for the Office of Employee Services, said a quick survey failed to turn up any other counties with a formal policy on executives’ rights to severance pay. But Daly said most counties accomplish the same result informally by keeping managers on the payroll for several months after they have been relieved of their duties.