The D.C. Council is considering legislation that could potentially provide police Chief Cathy Lanier’s top staff members lucrative retirement packages if she loses her job and they’re either fired or demoted by her successor.
The bill was introduced at a time when Lanier’s future with the city is questionable with D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray poised to move into the mayor’s office. Gray was backed in the mayoral primary by the D.C. police union, whose chief has had a long-standing feud with the police chief.
Mayor Adrian Fenty appointed Lanier in 2007. Gray has said he has not yet decided if he will keep Lanier. The bill, which was originally introduced by Fenty as an emergency act that would have skirted the council’s normal legislative process, suggests Lanier is preparing to protect her staff in case she’s fired.
The council, however, did not move forward with Fenty’s emergency bill. Instead, at-large Councilman Phil Mendelson introduced a similarly worded piece of legislation that will travel through the council in typical fashion. Upon introducing the bill on Sept. 21, Mendelson said it’s designed to address a “problem that recently came to my attention.”
According to the bill, the “problem” is that Lanier took the nontraditional route of appointing to her staff “the most talented and qualified individuals,” rather than basing those decisions on tenure. Upon accepting Lanier’s appointment, staff members who jumped the traditional tenure promotion system — under current law — would lose the right to the higher pensions those positions afford if they’re fired or demoted when a new chief takes over.
But the new law would give those staff appointees 80 percent of their average annual pay, or 80 percent of their basic salary upon retirement, whichever is higher.
“It is fundamentally unfair to disregard time served in good standing at an elevated rank in calculating a member’s annuity,” the bill says.
Baumann said that’s bogus.
“The appointees get more money and power, but they’re also at-will employees who can be fired or demoted at anytime,” the union chief said. “Those are the trade-offs.”
Mendelson said the bill’s wording will be clarified to ensure there are no “golden parachutes,” as Baumann called the retirement benefits, after Mendelson holds an Oct. 15 hearing.
As to the bill’s timing, Mendelson said it’s valuable regardless of Lanier’s future.
“It came out a time when we might see some transition,” he said, “but it’s designed to address an anomaly [that Lanier created].”
