I’m glad Leland Yee and John Avalos are criticizing the $384,000 severance package for Muni chief Nat Ford. Yee’s even collecting signatures on a petition. None of which will matter, though — the MTA is going to approve this and Ford (who, in essence, appears to have been fired for doing a bad job) will walk away with the cash.
That’s because the MTA didn’t have a lot of choice. The guy had a contract. And it included, I’m sure, mandatory severance if he was dismissed for any reason before the end of the term.
Why do (some) department heads have employment contractsthat include severance payments? I don’t know. The police chief doesn’t have one. The director of public health doesn’t have one. In fact, most senior city employees don’t get guaranteed golden parachutes.
But the head of Muni does. The head of the Transbay Terminal project does. The last head of the SF Public Utilities Commission did; I don’t know if the current person has one, too, but it’s likely.
This is a problem.
Why should some selected department heads get special contracts, while your average department head gets nothing? Why should city employees at the top get severance when your average working city employee gets none?
There’s no clear definition of which department heads get special deals and which ones don’t. It’s up to the commissions. That’s what Yee and Avalos ought to be working on — changing the rules to get rid of these severance contracts in the first place.