Mayor Seeks to Settle Pay Confusion

While acknowledging that raises for more than a dozen top Los Angeles managers were given improperly, Mayor Richard Riordan on Friday disputed allegations that he was responsible for the botch-up and said he would work to rectify the problem.

Riordan said he believed that members of the City Council serving on the city’s Executive Employee Relations Committee were the ones responsible for erroneously handing out pay increases to a number of department heads.

Stung by criticism from the city attorney’s office earlier this week, Riordan’s office sent a letter to City Atty. James K. Hahn on Friday stating that he did not attend the committee meeting in which three council members signed off on raises--apparently in violation of the city charter--for Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, Harbor Department manager Larry Keller and Department of Water and Power head S. David Freeman.

Aides to the mayor accused Hahn of misstating important facts about the raises and of attacking Riordan for political purposes--notably, to advance the city attorney’s campaign for mayor.

Officials in the city attorney’s office say they continue to hold Riordan responsible for the mess because he serves as the city’s chief executive.

Though the mayor was not at the committee meeting when the raises were approved, two of his staff members attended the session and advocated the pay hikes on behalf of the mayor, officials said.

“The mayor’s office is very much involved in the evaluations and the review of the salaries,” said Chief Assistant City Atty. Pete Echeverria. “Whether it was the mayor at the meeting or anyone else from his staff, they played a critical role. And the actions need to be remedied.”

In recent weeks, the city has granted raises averaging between 4% and 5% to 18 of the city’s 36 top managers, boosting the median salary to nearly $164,000. All executives received an additional cost-of-living increase of 2%.

City officials attributed the confusion over the pay hikes largely to the new city charter, which completely changed the process by which city managers are given salary increases. Under the old charter, managers were given raises by the mayor and the Executive Employee Relations Committee, which includes council members Ruth Galanter, Mark Ridley-Thomas and Mike Feuer.

Under the new charter, Riordan is responsible for granting raises to managers who do not report directly to civilian oversight commissions, such as the city clerk, the city librarian and the city planner.

At the request of the council, Hahn in recent weeks launched an investigation to make sure the raises were handed out properly.

He sent a letter to the council and the mayor on Friday informing them that a hold was placed on raises for Parks, Freeman and Keller because their increases needed to be approved by their departments’ respective civilian commissions.

Officials in the mayor’s office, meanwhile, said they believe as many as 10 other raises may have been handed out recently by the executive employee committee in violation of charter procedures. Under the new charter, the committee no longer has a say in raises.

City officials said Friday they want to get past finger-pointing and work to rectify the situation.

“When a problem arrises, we need to figure out how to fix it,” Feuer said. “Just trying to figure out who is at fault doesn’t solve anything. Let’s focus on what really matters.”