We’ve been asked why we only reported on the severance payouts to former City Administrator Colleen Castille and former COO Tamara Fountain.
Why? Because the public was misled that those resignations were freely submitted, and clearly they were not.
Also, the post shows how the cost of the city administrator job function has doubled over the past two years from $130,000 to $265,325.
We’ve also been asked why we didn’t include the severance payouts to others, such as City Administrator Bill Reynolds, Chief of Staff John Asmar, Council Executive Lila Cox, CMP Executive Director Ed Spears, City Attorney Rusty Wells, and Community Outreach Administrator LuTimothy May.
There is no severance payout in Reynolds’ personnel folder. Asmar was a vendor under contract and had no severance payout. The City has not released Wells’ folder, but his job had nothing to do with the city administrator when he resigned in April 2011. He has since been hired as Special Assistant to the City Administrator.
Cox, Spears and May were fired, which could have triggered any severance clause in their employment contracts. We do not have their personnel folders. However, none of them performed a city administrator job function.
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A report on all the severance payouts made while Mayor Hayward has been in office might be a good story. We’ll add it to our list.