A Montgomery County Council panel voted in favor of keeping former council member Michael Subin in a job worth more than $190,000 a year, in a blatant rebuke of recommendations from the county’s independent government watchdog to ax the position. Council President Valerie Ervin, D-Silver Spring, and Councilwoman Nancy Navarro, D-eastern county, voted to keep Subin in his role as director of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Commission during a meeting of the three-member Government Operations Committee. Supporters said the Organizational Reform Commission was not thorough in its research and report, according to people present at the meeting.
The third member of the committee, Hans Riemer, was the lone dissenter who sided with a recommendation from the Organizational Reform Commission — a county resident-staffed watchdog — that would eliminate the position. The council will now take up the issue.
“We should have an existing executive branch staffer to take up the responsibility,” said Riemer, D-at large. “It’s not a full time job so whoever does this work should have other work.”
Subin’s commission is tasked with “coordinating communication” among Montgomery’s law enforcement agencies. The full commission formally meets four times a year — with regular, smaller meetings held monthly — and is not required to produce any reports for county officials.
“Staff support for the [Criminal Justice Coordinating Commission] does not require an executive director post that is now staffed by a high-level appointee,” the Organizational Reform Commission wrote in a recent report. “We recommend elimination of this position.”
County Executive Ike Leggett, a longtime political ally and friend of Subin’s, says Subin’s elimination would “take the county backwards in its efforts to adequately address criminal justice issues.” He said putting another agency, such as the police department, in charge of Subin’s task would “create the appearance of either favoritism, or a particular policy direction.”
Leggett increased Subin’s duties in his fiscal 2012 budget proposal around the time that council members began voicing concerns over the high-salaried, part-time position. The county executive also attached a raise of nearly $40,000 to compensate Subin for the new responsibilities, which are unrelated to his work in criminal justice.
The changes still would not require a report from Subin on the work of the commission.
“The law does not require the [Criminal Justice Coordinating Commission] to write an annual report because all of its activities are part of its constituent agencies,” Leggett wrote in defense of the commission. “Any additional report would be duplicative of the other submissions.”
