Over the coming months, Arcadia will lose several of its highly-regarded top administrators to retirement: Chief of Police Bob Sanderson, and the heads of the library/museum and Chamber of Commerce, Carolyn Garner-Reagan and Beth Costanza, respectively, as well as Deputy Fire Chief David Haney. And next summer City Manager Don Penman plans to sit down with the City Council after the budget is adopted and discuss his plans.
by Scott Hettrick
With the exception of Costanza, who has been on the job nearly 12 years and is the only one who is not a City employee, all the others have been in their City-paid posts only a few years — being appointed between 2005-2009. The good news is that they are not exiting en masse as the result of any collective gripe, but rather a coincidental confluence of circumstances.
Retiring per PERS Sanderson, Garner-Reagan, and Haney are officially retiring at the end of the year next month, perhaps a little earlier than they might have were it not for the way the state’s Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) rules are set up. In Garner-Reagan’s case, she was motivated to take retirement now due to the City’s PERS contract which only provides a spouse 50% of the employee’s benefits if the employee who was eligible to retire were to, God forbid, die while still employed, as opposed to 100% available to the spouse if the employee dies after retirement. That’s a bizarre incentive for employees to retire as soon as they are eligible. The same is true for Sanderson and Haney, though they can retire with full benefits at age 50, five years earlier than other City employees since they are employed in jobs involving public safety. Garner-Reagan, for example, is 61 and has 35 years of service under PERS.
In another unusual aspect of the system, Garner-Reagan, Sanderson, and Haney will continue to essentially serve in their same capacity for as long as six months after their retirement as the City takes advantage of the opportunity to retain them on a temporary basis during the year following their retirement to assist with the transition to a successor. The maximum amount of hours they can be paid during a fiscal year — 960 hours — works out to the equivalent of full-time employment for 6-months, so they will all bunch up their hours into the first six months of 2011, the last six months of fiscal year 2010-2011.
Actually, this happens to work out well for all involved, as explained by Penman:
City and taxpayers continue to benefit from their services and expertise, especially during this challenging fiscal environment as anticipated austere 2011-12 budgets will need to be set
Until a new department head is hired, the City and taxpayers save expenses on city-funded contributions to retirement as percentage of salary, which can range from 22% – 37% of salaries, which in these caases that range from $119,000 – . Once they are retired, their retirement payments come from a PERS account with funds already set aside. (In cases where the retired employee has accumulated 1000 hours of unused sick time, the City would also pay the medical premium for them and their spouse until they are eligible for Medicare — the City does not pay out for unused sick leave as do some cities, but Arcadia does allow unused sick time to be credited to time served when an employee retires.)
Allows time needed to find a replacement whom the retirees could help identify and possibly transition into their position
City’s option to end payment of temporary help at any time
Temporary work/pay will be completed in current fiscal year ending June 30, 2011
Sanderson, Garner-Reagan, and Haney can get in a year’s worth of temporary help in six months.
Changes made easier can work out All of that will make the city’s loss a little easier to deal with. And, if history is a guide, we can take comfort that each department and organization is strong and will, as always, find an able successor. In fact, these leaders ascended through the ranks and capably filled the roles of their predecessors when their time came after years of service — Chief Sanderson in 2005; City Manager Penman in 2008; and Library and Museum Services Director Garner-Reagan in January 2009. There are good people with years of experience in the departments of each of these retiring City administrators. And where necessary, good successors will be brought in from outside the department or maybe even outside the city, as has been the case in recent years with people such as Recreation and Community Services Director Sara Somogyi and Administrative Services Director Hue Quach. As Penman pointed out, Arcadia attracts good people because it has such a strong professional reputation. He also believes change and new ideas can be good, noting that over the past four or five years a new person has been appointed to head every department, “and I would say that this is the strongest management team I have worked with in my almost 13 years with the City.”
Beth Costanza has served the longest of this group since becoming Executive Director of the Arcadia Chamber of Commerce in 1999. She is targeting April 2011 for her retirement. Although she is not a City employee, she also hopes to stay on in a marketing capacity to help with member recruitment. The Chamber’s board of directors will also surely find a worthy new executive director.
But the confidence in a smooth transition to strong new leaders does not minimize the appreciation of the laudable work of each of these fine people. At least we can be glad that we have plenty of time to show our gratitude as each of them has embarked on their months-long farewell tour.
— By Scott Hettrick