Two Atlanta councilmembers say Mayor Kasim Reed’s administration has been slow to respond to their requests for additional information over payouts made to select employees under a little-known “hardship” program.
District 9 Councilwoman Felicia Moore and District 6 Councilman Alex Wan said they are still waiting on answers they asked for in August and September over payments Chief Financial Officer Jim Beard and Human Resources Commissioner Yvonne Yancy granted to nine employees in exchange for unused vacation, sick or compensatory time.
Police chief George Turner, the city’s top earner with a $241,000 salary, was allowed to collect more than $80,000 under the program.
“I’m getting no response. They don’t respond to my emails,” Moore said Wednesday. “It’s unfortunately a pattern where statements are made and when you ask for information to back up those statements, the information is not forthcoming.”
Reed’s administration met with the city’s finance committee in August to discuss the payouts, which Moore has decried as “illegal.” During that meeting, Reed insisted that the payments — some as high as five-figures to at least three executives, including Turner — did not violate city code.
The finance committee scheduled a second meeting to discuss the payouts for last week, but it was canceled as both Yancy and Beard were unavailable. Wan, chair of the council’s finance committee, said that City Attorney Cathy Hampton offered to meet with him or other councilmembers privately, and that he subsequently asked Reed’s officials for the information they were set to provide during the hearing.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Beard, Yancy, Hampton and Chief Operating Officer Michael Geisler hadn’t replied to his emailed request, he said.
“It is frustrating,” Wan said. “When that request was made, it wasn’t made for me but on the behalf of the finance committee. But we’re not getting responses that way either.”
The AJC also asked the city for documents concerning the payouts in August, and received the requested information late Wednesday. Georgia open records laws requires a response within a three-day window, and if the requested data isn’t available in that time frame, a government must give an estimated date of delivery.
Anne Torres, Reed’s director of communications, said Reed’s office “makes a concerted effort to fulfill all requests in a timely fashion” and said the delay stems from needing to compile data from a number of sources. She didn’t address why the administration had failed to respond to certain councilmembers.
In a statement, Torres also took a swipe at Moore, a regular Reed critic who has repeatedly raised concerns over transparency.
“Unlike Councilmember Moore, our staff is gainfully employed and has a broad range of responsibilities that are directly related to the day-to-day operations of running the capital city of Georgia,” Torres said. “Unfortunately, our staff is not afforded the luxury of sitting around and thinking of ‘gotcha’ questions in hopes of getting three more minutes of fame.”
Reed has previously criticized Moore as unqualified to deem the actions “illegal” because she is a real estate agent, and not an attorney.
Moore says the data she’s seeking will shed further light on payments that she says violate city code, which authorizes payouts for vacation only upon retiring or permanent separation.
She questions how a number of the employees were able to cash in hundreds of hours of unused sick and comp time beyond what city code allows an employee to carry-over into a new year.
During the initial finance committee hearing in August, Reed acknowledged that the decisions to allow some workers to trade unused time for cash lacked documentation and could raise fairness concerns from other employees, many of whom were unaware of the so-called “hardship program.”
In addition to Turner, two Reed deputies were each paid roughly $30,000 for hundreds of hours in unused vacation, sick and comp time. Three other employees were paid a combined $6,000 for unused vacation time. And three city workers were granted a combined $12,000 in advance pay — effectively a loan against future earnings.
“We acknowledge this was an error, ” Reed said at the time. “We’ve said we’re not going to continue the practice going forward.”
At the time, Reed and Geisler also said the payments paled in comparison to decisions made under former Mayor Shirley Franklin. Both men said as many as 200 employees left the city between 2002 and 2009, collected payouts, and were soon hired back. Moore said the claims against Franklin were an attempt to distract from the issue at hand.
Following the meeting, Moore, Wan, and The AJC separately asked the city to supply data verifying that claim. Channel 2 Action News has since requested the Franklin data, as well.
More than a month later, and after repeated requests, Reed’s administration provided that information to the AJC late Wednesday. The AJC is now reviewing the material, which indicates that as many as 98 employees left the city between 2002 and 2007, only to be rehired in some capacity.
But the spreadsheet provided by Reed’s office gives no context for the terms of the employees’ departure, or whether they were allowed to be paid for compensatory or sick time. It’s also not clear whether any of the actions violate city codes, which allows for employees to be re-hired as contractors, for instance, or for a civil service board to reverse a termination and re-install a worker.
Franklin said she has little interest in engaging in a public debate about her tenure.
“My record of integrity and honesty stands. If there is any question about the legality of any of my actions or decisions during nearly 21 years in public office, then the authorities responsible for investigating such should investigate the allegations and take the appropriate action,” she said.
Moore, who has built much of her political career as the lone naysayer on many city issues, said she believes some of the delay in receiving information could stem from testy relations with Reed’s office. The administration recently denied her request for computer access to the city’s financial records.
She says her concerns over transparency and the mayor “aren’t personal.”
“It’s not about him. These are the types of questions I’ve been asking for 17 years,” she said, referring to her time in office. “It’s about accountability and openness and transparency.”
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