Riordan Calls for Inquiry Into DWP Worker Buyout : Government: One employee received $25,000 but stayed on in another city job. Officials look for signs of manipulation.

An angry Mayor Richard Riordan called for a criminal probe Wednesday to determine how a city employee got a $25,000 buyout without leaving the city payroll.

“This is the type of thing that doesn’t pass anybody’s smell test,” Riordan said a day after Councilman Joel Wachs spelled out how one city worker, Jocelino Joun, had found a lucrative loophole in the city’s voluntary severance plan.

“I will ask the district attorney to look at it criminally and I will ask the city attorney to see about suing to get the money back,” Riordan said at an impromptu news conference.

Meanwhile, city officials sought to determine if other city employees similarly manipulated a buyout plan that will pay $44 million to 1,500 employees of the Department of Water and Power. The city-owned DWP is using the buyout to dramatically reduce its work force.

DWP General Manager William McCarley on Wednesday said a quick review of records determined that about half a dozen other employees may have returned temporarily to their DWP jobs just to get the buyout. Joun, 25, had worked as a clerk-typist for the semiautonomous DWP for 2 1/2 years before transferring to another city department last spring.

When the DWP, under orders to reduce its staff, offered buyout packages ranging from $25,000 to $85,000 to employees who agreed to leave voluntarily, Joun returned to his former DWP job for one day, as permitted under Civil Service rules. By doing so, Joun picked up $25,000, the minimum available under the buyout plan.

On May 30--without missing a day’s pay--Joun landed a higher-paying job as a management assistant at the city’s Department of Aging.

Joun, a Woodland Hills resident, was able to return to his DWP job under a city rule called protected leave. Under it, employees who take new jobs in the city are entitled during their probationary period to return to their old jobs. During the probationary period they are said to be on protected leave from their old jobs.

The acting general manager of the Department of Aging, Ann Delores Smith, said that Joun’s current annual salary is about $33,000 and that he was hired as the best of half a dozen candidates who applied for the job. Smith said she did not know Joun personally but called him a “good employee.”

Joun could not be reached for comment. Smith said the analyst was working out of his home Wednesday under a telecommuting plan.

McCarley, head of the DWP, while agreeing to fully cooperate with Riordan and investigators, said he believed that the number of people who may have manipulated the system is small.

“Mr. Joun is a clever, manipulative person and there may be a few more,” McCarley said. “But even if there’s a half-dozen, that’s very few when 1,500 DWP employees took the buyout.

“We’re all upset by those who manipulate the system,” McCarley added. “But the big concern I have is that this incident is taking the focus away from the success of our buyout program that will save our customers a bundle of money.”

It has been estimated that the buyout program should save the utility about $86 million a year.

Joun’s case was brought to light Tuesday by Wachs, a regular DWP critic, as the council considered approval of a separate buyout plan for non-DWP city employees.

Wachs said he wanted to ensure that the latest buyout plan excluded some of the loopholes found in the DWP plan, citing the Joun case.

Employees of one department who take the buyout should not be able to be rehired in other city departments, nor should they be permitted to take the buyout if it is the city’s intent to refill their positions, Wachs said.

Wachs’ criticisms prompted the the council to ask for a one-day delay to give its staff additional time to explain the non-DWP plan. But the council was unable to muster a quorum Wednesday and the issue will not come up again until Friday.

Each day the plan is not in effect the city loses between $15,000 and $20,000 in savings, city officials estimated.

The city plan--while not as expansive as the DWP version--is designed to save the city $10 million to $12 million per year and eliminate about 200 city jobs.