County Execs Enjoyed Raises While Workers Endured Cuts

While many county workers were given pay cuts and furloughs, some managers and executives working for the County of Orange got pay raises and promotions without justification, according to a report discussed this morning by the Orange County Board of Supervisors.

A five-member ad hoc committee was created today to address the problems detailed in the internal audit.

And what are those problems? The audit, led by Orange County performance audit director Steve Danley, details 50 areas in need of improvement, the most serious of which involve executive pay. They include:

• Unresponsiveness to criticism: Over the last decade, the human resources  department has been studied 14 times by both public and private groups. But the department is still "underperforming in many areas," according to this audit. Also, the earlier studies have not been presented to the board.
• The human resources department lacks a compensation philosophy.
• The department has failed to keep consistent records of salary increases.
• Using the human resources director as lead negotiator for labor bargaining has harmed the county's ability to make internal improvements.

Also, executives are much less likely to receive a performance evaluation than non-executive employees, according to the audit. In 2010, 94 percent of non-management employees were given performance evaluations, vs. only 29 percent of executives.

And when managers are evaluated as meeting job expectations or below expectations, their written evaluations lack any criticism, the audit found. In the text of the audit, Danley reasons that when a manager scores a 2 or less out of a possible 4 points, "areas for development/improvement should be identified and documented."

Instead, no criticism is found in the files of county managers who show low scores.

"If one were to read the comments without knowing the rating, one would assume that the employee had received a performance rating of at least 3 [exceeds expectations] or higher," Danley said in the report.

Systems analyst Frank Eley with Orange County Public Works said the audit shows systemic problems.

“It’s not like this is just one aberration," he said. "It’s not like just a few raises got through the cracks. Ignoring rules has become a way of businesses. Raises and promotions for certain in-crowds—while others are being furloughed, doing more with less—that’s the way business is being conducted.”

Michael Mestas is a county social worker laid off in January 2009. He said his 5-year-old daughter asked if the family would lose its home.

“When I read the executives and managers were getting promotions and raises while my family was going through all of this, to tell you the truth, it made me mad,” he said.

County Executive Officer Thomas Mauk said it is important to temper the comments of angry employees with some facts about the study. He said the study covered 75 positions, and that some of the raises dated back to 2005, meaning some of the workers studied received raises and promotions before the recession.

"The testimony you heard today is important; it’s heartfelt, it affects me," Mauk said. "But there’s a much broader framework around it that I think we need to get to.”

Reading the audit was like "getting punched," said Board of Supervisors Vice Chairman John Moorlach. He said the audit showed a failure to comply with policies and procedures on behalf of the human resources department.

The ad-hoc committee organized to address the 50 points of concern will include county supervisors Pat Bates and Shawn Nelson, along with Mauk, Danley and human resources director Carl Crown.

Correction/clarification: An earlier headline said "most executives received raises with no justification." That applied to executives whose raises were audited, not to county executives overall.