Tollway Board Delays Study of Bonuses

The concept of bonuses for employees of Orange County’s toll road authorities took a back seat Thursday to a broader study of how officials should be compensated.

Orange County Transportation Corridor Agencies board members were asked Thursday to approve a $10,000 study that would have paid a consultant to rewrite a previously researched bonus plan. Under that original plan, employees could collect bonuses ranging from 5% of their annual pay for clerical workers to 50% for executives for goals such as maintaining toll road bond ratings or keeping savings in contingency accounts. Some of the bonuses amounted to tens of thousands of dollars.

But some board members felt that discussing an incentive system was premature before completion of a $24,000 study of how the entire staff is paid relative to other agencies.

“We are sending the wrong message if we look at bonuses before we’ve even finished reviewing the salaries,” Joanne Coontz, the mayor of Orange, said. “It’s just too much.”

The original idea behind an incentive plan was to motivate employees to find new ways to pay off the agency’s bond debt more quickly, so its toll roads can become freeways sooner than currently projected, TCA officials said. The bonuses would have been paid with savings from refinanced bonds, toll revenue that exceeds projections or other unexpected revenue.

“We were instructed to try to promote, and reward, innovative thinking,” TCA spokeswoman Lisa Telles said.

Several members, however, wanted to shelve the incentive issue altogether. Supervisor Todd Spitzer said a full board discussion on TCA bonuses was needed to “look at the whole philosophy of incentive programs for quasi-public agencies.”

“I don’t want to vote on anything at this point that studies any aspect of bonuses for [the TCA],” Spitzer said. “We need more information.”

Board members agreed to discuss the incentive issue and the overall compensation survey at next month’s meeting before making any more compensation decisions, although doing so frustrated some longtime members who called the step a waste of time.

In other business, board members:

* Approved the installation of 60 emergency call boxes along the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor. The TCA will pay $156,000 to buy and install the solar-powered telephones if the Orange County Transportation Authority agrees to fund maintenance and operational costs. If OCTA board members approve the agreement as expected later this month, call boxes will be on the road by May, officials said.

* Authorized construction of a 500-foot-long wall at the El Toro Road offramp to shield neighbors from excessive light and glare coming from the road’s toll plazas. Neighbors on Falcon Crest Lane complained that the light is a nuisance and keeps them awake at night.