I’ve been following this story for a week now and here is the main problem: when someone resigns from a position because of negligence, and then is retained as a consultant for the same salary, what is the city gaining? The argument is institutional knowledge but given this GM’s replacement has done the job before, the case for keeping the aforementioned is weak.
Cities are on hiring freezes. There are mandatory furloughs. And yet all of this is pretty easily flouted by enterprise agencies like LA’s DWP (a city cable/internet department is a similar case - they earn their own revenue and can sometimes argue for commensurate salary).
In the best of cases, an employee who retires with substantial benefits and then returns as a consultant is going to be eyed funny - this is essentially double-dipping. And in bureaucracy, expect something like this, petty or not, to become a real distraction to other employees or elected officials.
- via LAist
