Council OKs Tightened Buyout Plan for L.A. City Workers

The Los Angeles City Council on Friday adopted a severance pay plan, along with a policy that proponents say will close loopholes that made a separate buyout program for 1,500 Department of Water and Power employees the target of criticism and official investigation.

“I think we’ve closed all the loopholes we could foresee and have heard about,” said Councilman Joel Wachs.

The buyout plan, which will be offered to non-DWP city employees, was approved on an 11-1 vote.

During the past week, Wachs and Mayor Richard Riordan have condemned a few DWP employees who they maintained had taken unscrupulous advantage of their agency’s buyout plan.

Riordan urged the district attorney to investigate at least one DWP buyout participant, Jocelino Joun, and Wachs vowed that he would purge the separate, smaller buyout plan for non-DWP employees of loopholes.

The buyout proposal for non-DWP workers adopted Friday offers 77 people financial incentives to resign or retire early.

Eventually this plan will be offered to a total of 200 city employees and could save the city $12 million to $13 million annually as it seeks to shrink its work force.

Under the plan, employees are offered $1,000 plus one week’s pay for each year they have worked for the city. Thus, an eight-year employee making $2,000 a week would receive $8,000 plus eight weeks of pay for a total of $24,000.

The 200 targeted employees will get a buyout package worth a totoal of $11.8 million.

The proposal received little attention until media reports began to surface about the DWP situation. These prompted the council to try to alter the plan to prevent a reprise of the problems found at the DWP.

For example, under the modified plan adopted Friday, employees will not be able to get the buyout and take jobs at other city departments for three years--unless they return the money they made in the buyout or some portion of it. Also, employees on leave from their jobs will not be eligible to return from their approved absences to take the buyout.

Finally, the positions of employees who take the buyout will be eliminated and not filled with new people.

The plan mostly will affect inspectors and engineers in the city’s Bureau of Engineering and the Building and Safety Department, two agencies that have seen their workloads drop in recent years.

Friday’s council action also included adoption of a city policy intended to block DWP employees who have accepted that agency’s buyout from taking jobs in other city departments.

Joun came to the attention of Riordan and Wachs because he got a $25,000 buyout check while employed at another city department.

Wachs also fumed about the case of Rufus Hightower, a former top engineer at the DWP, who got more than $80,000 from the buyout while working as head of Pasadena’s utility agency.

The DWP plan also has been criticized as ill-conceived and overly generous because it was offered to all DWP employees. The result is that 200 to 300 workers who took the buyout will have to be replaced.

Amid the criticism, DWP General Manager William McCarley has insisted that his department’s plan was sensible and effective.

Overall, it will cost the city about $44 million to implement but will save $86 million per year.

“If I were in the private sector, they’d put me on the cover of Fortune magazine,” he said.