Just days before former Mayor Kasim Reed left office, his administration showered select city employees with more than $518,000 in bonuses, and gifts that were presented during an "executive holiday party" at City Hall.
The spending spree has left the police union outraged, taxpayers fuming and council members questioning its legality.
During his last days in power, Reed awarded at least $350,000 in bonuses to his senior staff; ordered $42,500 in checks to the eight members of his security detail; gave away $36,000 by drawing names out of a hat during a holiday party raffle in December; and awarded $31,000 to lip sync and ugly sweater contest winners, also at the party.
But none of the holiday giving came out of Reed’s wallet — it all belonged to city taxpayers, and that’s not the full extent of the spending.
Related: See who got bonuses from former Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed
Former human resources commissioner Yvonne Yancy handed out an additional $57,500 in bonuses to 11 members of her staff just days before she left City Hall for the private sector, on Dec. 31.
In response to questions from the AJC, Reed issued a three-paragraph statement.
"Rewarding employees for service and performance is not new and has been common practice in the City of Atlanta," says the statement, issued through Reed's spokesman. "These bonuses were appropriate and Mayor Reed believes that the individuals who received the bonuses were worthy of them based upon their contributions to the City of Atlanta's unprecedented growth and fiscal stability."
Atlanta City Council President Felicia Moore called the spending "disgusting" and "illegal."
“It just reminded me of someone having money and throwing it in the air and letting everybody catch it,” Moore said. “It’s just unconscionable. Let’s just make it clear: It’s not legal to do this. Just make it point-blank clear. He had absolutely, positively no authority to issue any of that to anybody under any circumstance,” she said.
"The mayor can only do what is authorized by the council. He did not go through the proper channels," Moore added.
Moore pointed to a city ordinance that prohibits increasing “the salaries or other remuneration in any form of any officer or employee of the city during the fiscal year, except by ordinance” approved by the City Council.
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, whose campaign was endorsed by Reed, did not respond to the AJC’s questions about the appropriateness of using taxpayer money for contests and raffles. She also declined to respond when asked if the bonuses were appropriate and whether she would award them at the end of the year.
“Decisions around the bonuses were made without input from the current administration,” the statement said. “However, Mayor Bottoms will continue to carefully evaluate best practices, prioritizing ways in which city business can be conducted in a transparent and responsible manner.”
‘A bunch of questions here’
The city’s code stipulates several circumstances under which employees may receive bonuses.
Police officers can receive retention bonuses of $3,000 after 5 years of service. Some employees can receive 2-percent bonuses for being bilingual or by earning a special certification. The city also provides longevity bonuses up to $750 for employees who have been with the city for 25 years or more.
City ordinances do not appear to authorize payments or bonuses of arbitrary amounts for unspecified reasons.
"There are a bunch of questions here," said Councilman Howard Shook, who chairs the City Council's Finance/Executive Committee. "I couldn't think of a worse time to dole out bonuses of this nature from a political perspective. Everything is so unsettled. Morale is so low. Everyone is waiting for the next piece of bad news.
“Obviously, we are all now going to contemplate what guardrails need to be put around this process,” Shook said.
The Georgia State Constitution’s gratuities clause prohibits public agencies from granting donations, gratuities and “extra compensation to any public officer, agent, or contractor after the service has been rendered or the contract entered into.”
An unofficial opinion from the Georgia Attorney General in 2002 dealt with whether public hospital authorities could offer prospective employees signing bonuses. It said they could “if the authority receives a substantial benefit in exchange for the signing bonus.”
Related: See the unofficial opinion from 2002 here
Georgia State Rep. Chuck Martin, a Republican, and chairman of the state house's Budget and Fiscal Affairs Oversight Committee, said the gratuities clause generally prohibits taxpayer money from being spent without taxpayers receiving something in return.
“If those types of bonuses hadn’t been done previously, it would seem to me to call into question the reason for them here,” said Martin, a former Mayor of Alpharetta. “If I was a taxpayer in Atlanta, I would certainly wonder: Wouldn’t that half-a-million dollars been better spent recruiting people to work for me in 2018 and beyond?”
Reed did not address the AJC’s questions about whether metrics were used to determine the amounts of bonuses; nor did he say what the city would receive in return for giving the bonuses.
A spokeswoman for Attorney General Chris Carr did not respond to an email about whether the gratuities clause applied to the City of Atlanta's recent bonuses. Shook said he couldn't recall similar payouts during his 16 years on the City Council.
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