City Won’t Pick Up $879 Check for DWP ‘Wining and Dining’

City Controller Rick Tuttle publicly chastised the Department of Water and Power officials Friday for requesting reimbursement for a meal he considered excessive.

Tuttle announced he was denying an $879 voucher for an April dinner at the Sheraton Grande Hotel attended by six top DWP officials and spouses to welcome to town a newly hired DWP financial officer.

It was the second time in a month the city controller had blocked a DWP banquet expense account.

“This kind of lavish wining and dining by city employees is a terrible symbol of government waste,” said Tuttle, recently reelected to a second four-year term. “It’s a slap in the face to every DWP ratepayer in this city; $879 could pay the water and electricity bills for more than 20 low income families for an entire month.”

Within hours, DWP general manager Norman E. Nichols, who was among those attending the dinner with his wife, issued a terse statement announcing that he would withdraw the request for public payment.

“The expenditure is the result of management and their spouses meeting a new member of the management team and his spouse,” Nichols wrote. “If the controller feels this is not an appropriate business expense, to that end, I will withdraw the payment request.”

Nichols had no further comment on why the bill was submited, nor did he explain who will now pay for dinner, DWP spokesperson Dorothy Jensen said.

Last month, Tuttle rejected as “outrageous” a $1,013 lunch tab for 25 DWP and City Attorney’s office employees at the exclusive Jonathan Club. Tuttle said the $40-a-person tab -- for a “celebration” of an out-of-court settlement of a lawsuit filed against the DWP -- was far too costly and held at an inappropriate venue. The private downtown club has been sued by the city for allegedly discriminating against women.

In the Jonathan Club matter, Nichols withdrew the earlier payment request. Following a quick review, he announced that the lunch had been appropriate but that the location was not. Three DWP managers who hosted the lunch would pay for it instead, Nichols said.

In a letter to Tuttle following the episode, Nichols also questioned whether the controller was grandstanding. “I was surprised to learn of your concern through your press announcement. In the future, these oversights will receive my attention if you will be so kind as to simply call me.”

On Friday, Tuttle noted in a letter to Nichols that he “will not respond to this kind of outrageous request with a discreet phone call. I believe that attempts to pay for $135-a-couple dinners demand public criticsm.”

Tuttle, who said he usually eats dinner at home, declined in an interview Friday to cite a maximum allowable standard for meals. Rather, he said, that common sense tells him that “this kind of lavish wining and dining is a terible symbol of government waste.”

At the DWP’s airy cafeteria Friday afternoon, several DWP employees, who asked to remain anoymous, seemed to agree.

“I think it’s a little excessive, although it’s nice if you can get away with it,” said a clerical worker, who was munching on a $4.50 seafood basket. “I have Water and Power at home and I have to pay the bill, so ultimately it’s on my own bill.”

Echoed a DWP marketing employee who was sipping a $1.22 bowl of chicken vegetable soup: “As with so many things in life, you go too far, you get corrected, and you step back.”

According to Tuttle, the $879 dinner bill was filed prior to his rejection of the lunch tab. But rather than subsequently withdrawing the request, he said, DWP financial officials followed up with a phone call to see when the dinner bill would be paid.

Attending the affair with their spouses, Tuttle said, were Nichols, who earns an annual salary of $145,533; general manager for external services Daniel W. Waters, $124,652; chief financial officer Norman J. Powers, $124,652; assistant general manager for water Duane L. Georgeson, $124,652; assistant general manager for power Eldon A. Cotton, $124,652; and the newly hired director of business planning and analysis Frederick A. Findley, $125,000. Edward C. Farrell, who earns $103,439 as the chief assistant city attorney responsible for DWP matters, attended alone.

The salary figures were attached to Tuttle’s press release.