Move comes after D.C. mayor flip-flops again on salaries Mayor Vincent Gray fired his chief of staff Wednesday under mounting pressure to make changes to an administration rapidly sinking under a series of scandals.
“I requested and accepted Gerri Mason Hall’s resignation today,” Gray said Wednesday evening. Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Paul Quander will be acting chief of staff as well until Gray can find a permanent replacement, the mayor said.
Hall is widely blamed for the administration’s hiring of political appointees’ children, including her own son, and higher-than-legal salaries paid to some top officials.
“We determined over the last several days that personnel issues were overshadowing the work of the government,” Gray said. “We need to be facing the problems and challenges of the city.”
Gray’s firing of Hall comes after The Washington Examiner reported last week how council members and D.C. political insiders were calling for her to be ousted.
Earlier in the day, Gray for a third time changed his policy on administration salaries that were on pace to break the legal limit, saying he now plans to introduce legislation allowing D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson to collect an annual salary nearly $100,000 above the cap. On Wednesday, The Washington Examiner reported that Henderson’s $275,000-per-year salary was on the chopping block after the mayor’s communications director confirmed Gray was scaling back the salary of “everyone” who was over the legal limit. During a news conference Wednesday morning, Gray confirmed that Henderson’s salary was above the legal limit, but said he now planned to introduce a bill to get the council’s approval for it. Salaries for Gray’s top political appointees have been an issue since last month, but Gray stood by them at the time, saying they were necessary to attract talented employees. The high salaries, however, led Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh to issue a report last week that found eight members of the Gray administration were being paid beyond the legal limit. Human resources director Judy Banks told Cheh that “the mayor all along intended to submit legislation that would authorize the beyond-the-range compensation for all relevant appointments,” Cheh wrote in the report. But that position was reversed Sunday when Banks sent notices to nine administration officials informing them their salaries were cut, City Administrator Allen Lew testified during a council hearing Wednesday. Lew said it was Banks who gave the initial approval for the salaries. When he announced Hall’s firing, Gray also said Banks will not stay on as human resources director and he’s looking for her replacement.
Gray said he altered his position on the too-high salaries because they “weren’t worth the debate. … I just wanted to get this resolved,” he said.
