Gaithersburg officials are looking into how city employees were allowed to live in city-owned houses well below market rates for years, in some cases for as long as nearly three decades.
One city employee, a public works supervisor who made more than $100,000 last year in salary and overtime according to published accounts, has been paying as little as $350 a month since at least 1999 to live in a 1,700-square-foot house steps away from City Hall. Bobby Johnson has been living at the house for nearly 30 years, said city officials, who couldn’t find a copy of his lease.
In exchange for low rent, Johnson has performed duties for the city, like locking and unlocking the bathrooms at a park. He couldn’t be reached for comment, but his boss, Wally DeBord, said Johnson is an invaluable asset to the city who can “resolve just about any resident concern in any area of responsibility” and should be allowed to stay at his current house “under any circumstances.”
The city owns at least two other houses it rents to city employees at a steep discounts. One employee pays $370 a month to live in 500-square-foot house; another pays $700 a month to live in a 925-square-foot house. There’s been turnover at those two properties, Finance Director Harold Belton said, with a lottery among interested city employees determining who gets to live there.
The city’s elected officials asked the city manager to look into the rental deals after they were reported in the local paper, the Town Courier.
“It just was not on the radar screen,” said Mayor Sidney Katz, who has been an elected official for more than 30 years. Katz said he knew that city-owned properties were being rented to employees, but didn’t know the specifics of the lease agreements.
The city’s day-to-day operations are run by City Manager Angel Jones, who has been on the job for less than a year.
Councilman Ryan Spiegel said he had no idea about the rental deals and was “upset and frustrated” that he hadn’t been made aware of them earlier. He said he doesn’t blame the employees for seizing upon a good offer.
“It is a sweet deal, I’m not going to deny that,” he said.
Belton said neither the city nor the employees who rent the houses has done anything wrong, but added that the rents would “more than likely” increase as a result of the investigation.
