O.C. Retirement Board Suspends Top Official After Staff Complaints : Government: System administrator Mary-Jean Hackwood is expected to be paid while a labor attorney is hired to investigate allegations by some of her employees.

Orange County’s employee retirement board has placed its controversial top administrator on paid leave after allegations that she charged personal telephone calls to the county and ordered underlings to water her plants and shuttle her to the airport on personal trips.

The decision to suspend Mary-Jean Hackwood, who is paid $97,760 a year to run the Orange County Employees Retirement System, is the latest in a series of troubles for the administrator, whose management style was the subject of a critical outside audit four years ago.

Also in 1991, Hackwood and four board members came under fire for taking a 26-day trip to Europe. The county’s auditor-controller rejected $5,000 in personal expenses, but board members maintain they never intended for the county to pay for personal items.

The newest set of allegations surfaced in early November when employees approached board member Sara Ruckle, a senior investigator with the district attorney’s welfare fraud unit, with a number of complaints against Hackwood.

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In a closed four-hour emergency session on Wednesday, the nine-member board, which oversees the county’s $2.9-billion retirement fund, heard Ruckle and two other board members repeat a series of employee accusations, including complaints that Hackwood might have used county telephones to make personal calls and ordered staff to assist her with personal chores outside of work.

“There were a whole litany of examples,” said Robert Thomas, a board member and former county administrative officer. “We heard when she was on vacation or on a business trip, she’d have employees pick up her mail or water the potted plants.”

Thomas said none of the allegations appeared in writing or on tape, but were relayed through the board members who spoke with several retirement board employees.

Hackwood, traveling this week in the Bay Area on business, has been informed of the board’s decision to place her on administrative leave and did not return telephone calls to her office or home Wednesday.

The retirement board oversees the investments of about 20,000 current or retired government workers.

The board’s operations committee, of which Thomas is a member, is expected to hire a labor attorney who will investigate the allegations.

Until the investigation is complete--it is not expected to be finished until next month--Terry Slattery, the agency’s investment officer, will take Hackwood’s place.

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The board also heard complaints that have surfaced again and again in recent years: that Hackwood’s management style has become unbearable and she sometimes berates staff members in public.

Thomas said the issue came up last in 1991, after a management audit by KPMG Peat Marwick, which concluded that the system’s staff members “are having difficulty maintaining a high level of coordination, cooperation and mutual respect.” At that time, Thomas and another board member confronted Hackwood about the way she treated staffers.

“We told her what was acceptable and what was not acceptable,” Thomas said. “We thought it was pretty well ironed out. Most of it was management style. The previous administration was pretty lackadaisical, and Mary came in like George Patton with a real military style. A lot of people couldn’t handle it.”

Although Thomas said board members were not pleased to hear of some of the same problems come to light they thought had long been resolved, he and others defend Hackwood’s ability to get the job done.

“Eight years ago, our fund was $750 million and now it’s $2.9 billion,” Thomas said. “We’ve gained some $500 million this year alone. We survived the county bankruptcy and lost some but it didn’t shake up the system. We’ve had a track record of great success. Maybe our employees are stressed out and stretched out, but our fund is doing very well.”

After Tuesday’s meeting, the board called in the entire staff and announced that Hackwood was being placed on paid leave until the matter was resolved.

Thomas said he fears that Hackwood might be so fed up with continued criticism that she might resign, but hopes “she has enough moxie to stick it out.”

“Whether she knows it or not, she’s got a lot of friends around here,” Thomas said. “Then again, I guess she’s got a lot of enemies too.”