Timing on Bonuses Bound to Take Its Toll : With Orange County Bankrupt, Just What Were Road Agency Directors Thinking?

The boards of directors of Orange County’s toll road agencies should be considered near the top of the list of those who just don’t get it. In another backward step for public relations, the directors of the Foothill/Eastern and San Joaquin Hills roads this month rewarded three top executives with 5% bonuses for “outperforming expectations.” It was a bad move at a time when the county is struggling with bankruptcy.

The tollway’s chief executive will get a bonus of more than $7,000, atop his $141,248 annual salary. The finance director and head engineer each will get an extra $6,370; each is paid $127,415 a year. Those extra payouts come from agencies that invested $325 million in the county’s investment pool. It collapsed last year and prompted the county to file for bankruptcy. The tollway agencies have gotten most of the money back, but not all: They are still waiting for nearly $50 million.

The three men receiving the bonuses had nothing to do with investing the agencies’ funds, directors said. That may be true, but the hundreds of county workers laid off because of the bankruptcy had nothing to do with the investment fund either. Yet they lost their jobs. In times of catastrophes, innocent people suffer.

The Sheriff’s Department, too, might have thought twice before asking for up to $835,000 for 42 new patrol cars. That works out to nearly $20,000 per vehicle. Even if the existing cars are pushing 100,000 miles, trying to squeeze another six months or a year of service out of at least some of them likely would have been justified given the tough economic times.

Still, buying the patrol cars, which the Board of Supervisors approved last week, was a closer call than paying bonuses to the toll road officials. Only one of 21 tollway directors voted against the bonuses, Irvine Councilwoman Paula Werner. She said correctly that the extra money would send “the wrong message” to county residents watching public services decrease. She was also right in saying she could not justify salary increases “for such well-compensated individuals.”

The San Joaquin Hills road officials previously went awry in not explaining clearly that Newport Coast Drive would become a toll road eventually. That understandably angered motorists accustomed to using it for free. The same officials also became embroiled in an especially adversarial relationship with environmentalists opposed to the road. The toll roads may improve Orange County’s traffic congestion, but the bonuses don’t do much to foster public goodwill.