State lawmakers should ban payouts for exiting city employees
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson says he believes state lawmakers should prevent contract payout clauses for municipal government employees like the lump sum payment due to outgoing City Manager T.C. Broadnax.
Johnson in his weekly email newsletter to residents on Sunday called a severance clause in Broadnax’s contract that mandates he be paid a year’s worth of his $423,246 annual salary if he resigns at the suggestion of the majority of the City Council a “golden parachute” and said it leaves taxpayers footing the bill.
The mayor referred to the exit as “backroom maneuvering” between other council members and Broadnax, whose resignation was announced Feb. 21. He was selected as Austin’s next city manager six weeks later on Apr. 4. Other cities have paid large severances to city managers, Johnson said, “although not in this way — and not to someone who was already lining up a job somewhere else.”
“The Texas Legislature ought to take the step to protect taxpayers by forbidding these golden parachutes for city employees in any locality in the state,” Johnson said in the newsletter. “Until then, as the search for a new city manager continues, it’s time for the Dallas City Council to take a stand by definitively stating that there won’t be a golden parachute clause in the next city manager’s contract.”
Broadnax’s city contract was approved by the City Council in Dec. 2016. Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Carolyn King Arnold is the only current council member who was elected at the time.
Johnson is among a few of the 15-member City Council who has said publicly that they weren’t aware Broadnax was going to resign until it was announced. A city news release announced Broadnax’s resignation, as well as a joint news release from council members Adam Bazaldua, Zarin Gracey, Omar Narvaez, Jaime Resendez, Jaynie Schultz and Gay Donnell Willis saying the city manager was stepping down “at the suggestion of the majority of the Dallas City Council.”
A key reason for the suggestion was that the working relationship between Johnson and Broadnax “has not been conducive to effective governance and the advancement of Dallas’ interests,” the February news release from the council members said.
According to terms of Broadnax’s contract, the city must pay him a lump sum equal to 12 months of his base salary if there is an “involuntary separation” from his duties as city manager. He could also be in line to receive even more money in payouts tied to health care benefits and unused vacation days.
An involuntary separation includes his resignation “following a suggestion, whether formal or informal, by a majority of the City Council that he resign,” the contract states. At least eight of the council’s 15 members could have voted to fire Broadnax, according to the terms of his contract. That tally is lower than what is required by the city’s charter, which says two-thirds of the Dallas City Council has to agree to remove a city manager.
Johnson led a public attempt to fire Broadnax in 2022 that ended in the two declaring a truce and the council approving a raise for the city manager. If the council had fired Broadnax, it also would have triggered the clause in his contract requiring Broadnax receive a lump sum payment equal to 12 months of his salary.
Broadnax declined comment about Johnson’s newsletter on Monday.
“I have no comment and I do not subscribe to his newsletter,” Broadnax told The Dallas Morning News.
Bazaldua called the mayor’s newsletter “political posturing at its finest.” He said the terms of Broadnax’s contract are clear, and also referenced how Broadnax would have gotten severance had the City Council fired him in 2022.
“The difference in then and now is that Mayor Johnson failed at his attempt and couldn’t build a consensus of a simple majority of our council to see it through,” Bazaldua told The News. “I think a better question is, would the mayor still have this whining tone had he been successful two years ago?”
City officials have declined to say how much Broadnax will receive when he leaves Dallas next month. Broadnax starts his job as Austin City Manager on May 6. Johnson’s newsletter is the first official confirmation from someone tied to the city that Broadnax will be getting a payment after he leaves.
“The fact is that the clause, as written, created an incentive for things to shake out exactly like they did,” Johnson wrote. “And that leaves you, the taxpayer, to foot the bill without even forcing the City Council to get together to discuss it first.”
Johnson says he won’t support a similar clause in the next city manager’s contract and suggests incentivized performance bonuses instead. The mayor suggests the city hitting goals like reducing 911 response times, lowering wait times for issuing building permits and violent crime rates going down could be examples of ways the city manager could earn extra pay.
Johnson said he believes it would improve the process of how Dallas’ city manager is evaluated and make it more transparent to the public.
“Heck, if, through this approach, the city manager ended up earning twice as much in a year as the previous one as a direct result of demonstrably improving core city services, cutting waste and inefficiencies, and improving public safety, then wouldn’t you take that deal?” Johnson said. “People should be rewarded for excellence as they are providing for it — not because their services are no longer desired.”
Resendez described the mayor’s newsletter as a latest example…
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2024-04-16 00:10:34