Retirement awards caught in Fenty-council spat
By: Michael Neibauer
Examiner Staff Writer
November 22, 2009
The four retirees applied for their early-out, easy-out awards, as much as $25,000 a person depending on their salaries, after the Department of Human Resources shut down the payments in mid-October. All agency chiefs were told that the fiscal 2010 budget adopted by the D.C. Council voided all bonus and special pay, including the retirement awards.
But Council Chairman Vincent Gray and Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh vehemently disagreed with the human resource department's decision. The prohibition, they said, did not include early-out, easy-out payments.
In a Nov. 12 letter to Mayor Adrian Fenty, the two council members explained that the budget prohibited bonus and special pay only "to send a very important signal to the citizens of the District of Columbia that during a time of economic hardship and high unemployment, the District government would not be giving out bonuses." "There is no ambiguity in the council's actions; those employees who were promised compensation as part of their separation should be made whole," Gray and Cheh wrote. "Those hard-working men and women who have served the District deserve no less." Attorney General Peter Nickles is supporting human resources Director Brender Gregory's interpretation of the budget move. In a letter to the two council members, Nickles offered an ultimatum: Adopt emergency legislation clarifying the intent of the budget provision, or the four retirement award applications will not be processed. "Please be advised that, given the council's failure to define the terms 'special pay' and 'bonus pay,' DCHR's interpretation of the pay provisions was not only logical and well-reasoned ... but reflected an earnest attempt to comply with the apparent intent of the council -- as you state yourself -- to recognize the District's current economic status," Nickles said. Cheh said she is preparing emergency legislation, but she continues to disagree strongly with Nickles. "The attorney general's interpretation is wrong," Cheh said. "There are clearly designated [budget lines] for bonuses and special payments. Those are the ones we zeroed out at a time when everyone else is belt tightening. To say we canceled [retirement awards] or eliminated them, that is just not true." Nickles declined to release the names of the four retirees. DCHR processed 58 award applications before Oct. 15, when the pay provision of the budget took effect.
