Glendale Finance Director Agrees to Resign for $90,000

GLENDALE —  Glendale’s finance director, under fire for using profane language in the office and exhibiting abusive behavior, agreed to resign Tuesday in exchange for a $90,000 cash settlement, a deal struck during a month of closed-door negotiating sessions with the City Council and top-level city officials.

Brian Butler, who had been on paid administrative leave since January, stood accused of using profanity in the workplace, making “discriminatory comments” about the “race, sex and physical attributes of city employees” and “threatening or intimidating conduct toward employees and others,” said City Manager Jim Starbird.

“First, let me say this matter is more than the use of ‘flowery’ language by Mr. Butler and more than Mr. Butler merely expressing his views on the appropriate policies for guiding the city’s fiscal decisions,” Starbird said in his report to a City Council meeting Tuesday night.

“It is unfortunate that the public has gotten this impression.”

In exchange for Butler’s immediate resignation, the city agreed to pay the 15-year finance director $90,000 in one lump payment and to drop a disciplinary action by the city’s Civil Service Commission. The payment is roughly equivalent to a year’s pay for Butler.

Though Butler was not present at the meeting, he hinted last week that he was prepared for a settlement and was looking forward to his future.

“I’m not sure what I’ll do,” he said. “I’m still considering my options.”

The City Council voted 3 to 2 in favor of the settlement. Council members Dave Weaver and Sheldon Baker voted against the settlement, because, they said, the payment represented a “questionable use of taxpayers’ money.”

“This is about some very serious charges,” Baker said. “But I cannot morally, and this is me, only me, accept the giving of public money under these circumstances, not these.”

But aside from Ginger Bremberg, who voted for the settlement with the reservation that “no amount of money can salvage a man’s reputation,” all council members agreed the charges against Butler were extremely serious and required his removal from office.

The charges “show a very significant pattern of years of abuse,” said Eileen Givens, who other members elected mayor at Tuesday night’s meeting. The mayor’s office is a largely ceremonial role that is rotated among the council members each year.

While none of the specific charges against Butler were detailed for the public, Starbird said interviews with 23 people in and out of City Hall and information gathered over the last two years depicted Butler as an abusive administrator whose behavior “exposed the city to liability, diminished effective working relationships between departments,” and “brought into question the credibility of the Finance Department and the information it provided.”

Neither Starbird nor any other city official would offer examples of Butler’s behavior.

The $90,000 settlement allows the council to hire a new finance director without the legal and political trouble of first firing Butler and then defending its action in court, where the case was likely to end up, according to those involved in the settlement.

Recent letters to the editor in local newspapers have suggested that Butler, finance director for Los Angeles County’s third-largest city for 15 years, run for the City Council in next year’s election. He has so far declined such invitations.

Butler’s case began with complaints lodged by three unnamed city employees last year. But none of these complainants apparently worked in Butler’s Finance Department, where he enjoyed strong support from his staff.

A letter sent to the council in February supporting Butler was signed by 25 of the 35 staffers in the Finance Department; five employees in the department were absent the day the letter was circulated and five declined, according to a source close the investigation.

“We are aware of Brian’s occasional abrasive language,” reads the letter, “but acknowledge that it is never directed toward anyone in particular. We do not deem it offensive or intimidating in any manner.”

The letter also stated that Butler’s language was never construed as “sexist or racist.” More than half of the department’s staff are women and nonwhites, according to the letter, which ended by pleading with the mayor and City Council to “stop this investigation and allow our leader back to his team.”

The council closed its discussion of Butler without commenting on when a new finance director would be appointed or who would serve as the department’s interim director.