The Reid Severance Bonus Legal Problem

Most of our long-time gentle readers are familiar with the Stuart Reid Severance Bonus Legal Problem. Inasmuch as it has been much discussed, I'm not going to summarize it further. New readers can find the basic story here.

On October 9, 2005, The Standard-Examiner published Mayor Godfrey's own written defense of Mr. Reid's $43,000 severance windfall. In that article, Mayor Godfrey sets forth his legal position. It's VERY short, and it fades, unfortunately, into some kind of weak equitable argument. You can read it here for yourself:

Stuart received exactly what is allowed for under Ordinance 99-46, just as other Ogden employees have over the years. Ordinance 99-46 also allows for an employee who has received severance to be immediately rehired by the city. While we did not operate under the ordinance because my agreement with Stuart predated it; we are still in perfect harmony with it. It's important to point out that hiring Stuart's company at Business Depot Ogden is saving us money compared to what his predecessors were being paid, and he comes to the job understanding all the issues.

The Standard-Examiner had also attempted to "explain" Mayor Godfrey's supposed legal argument in this 10/02/05 article:

An agreement that allowed former Community and Economic Development Director Stuart Reid to receive $43,561 in severance pay predated an ordinance that would have prohibited the payment, Ogden officials say.
The verbal agreement between Reid and Ogden Mayor Matthew Godfrey was struck when Reid began working for the city in January 2000, according to Chief Administrative Officer John Patterson. Under the agreement, Reid was to receive severance pay upon leaving the city.
In March 2000, a city ordinance took effect prohibiting employees who resign voluntarily, which Reid did this July, from receiving severance pay.
"The ordinance was not effective until after Stuart Reid was an employee of the city," Patterson said.

As you'll also recall, the public murmurings finally reached such a fever pitch that even Chamber of Peoples' Deputies Chairman Safsten eventually sent the question off to independant counsel, for an opinion on the bonus's legality.

Well... it's been over a month since the council did that, and the townsfolk still await the formal legal opinion.

The question actually came up at the recent League of Women Voters' Candidate Debate, where one perspicacious audience member asked this question of our Godfreyite Gang of six candidate Comrade Kent Jorgenson:

"Has the council received word yet from independent counsel about the propriety and legality of the Stuart Reid Severance? If not; will we receive it before the date of the general election?"

Comrade Kent Jorgenson answered the question succinctly, although not completely. "No, we haven't received the formal opinion yet," he said. Then Comrade Jorgenson rambled on and volunteered, "But we have received some information. We'll hold a work session to discuss it next week. We may have to tweak a statute."

"Tweak a statute? What statute(?) I thought. Before a follow-up question could be asked, the undisciplined event wandered off into pandemonium, and then time ran out.

Being the curious and impatient type though, I thought I'd check it out myself. How difficult is it to read and interpret a statute, I asked myself?

Very difficult is what I found out.

Researching an old Ogden city code section is a problem, I found. Local sources for the Ogden Municipal Code (like the so-called Weber County Law Library) use a "loose-leaf" code update service. When old code sections are amended, the old sections are just ripped out and replaced with the new ones. That makes the old statutory language unavailable. Fortunately, though, the Ogden city recorder's office maintains council ordinance archives; and I was finally able to piece it all together with a few trips to city hall.

I'll report what I found. This is the code section that existed at the beginning of the year 2000, when Godfrey and Reid entered into their purported secret handshake deal. I'm linking here the language of Ogden Municipal Code section 3.44.080, which is the city employee "Classification and Pay Plan" ordinance that was in effect in January of 2000, when Stuart Reid was first hired as Ogden City's Economic Development Director. As our gentle readers can see, there is no reference in the ordinance to a granting of any power to the Mayor to award severance packages. There is in fact no mention of "severance" at all.

The mayor takes the position in his guest editorial that his wings were clipped in March of the year 2000. Code section 3.44.080 was re-numbered as Ogden Municipal Code section 2-6-9 at some unknown point in time, pursuant to a general code reorganization, but the above code language remained intact until December 14, 1999. It was at that point that the outgoing city council, fearful of a "rolling or staff heads" with Mayor Godfrey's new incoming administration, passed the "ordinance 99-46" that Mayor Godfrey complains about in his above quote. This ordinance tacked an additional paragraph "F" to the existing code section 2-6-9 provisions, granting the Mayor the authority to negotiate severance packages, but only in the event of involuntary terminations. The amendement, which Mayor Godfrey did not sign, went into effect on March 22, of the year 2000.

Although Mayor Godfrey has characterized this amendment as a "limitation" on his power to award severance benefits, a plain reading of the pre-existing statute doesn't support this view at all. What's clear is that this December 14 amendment operated as a slight expansion of his Mayoral power, in instances where employees might be involuntarily terminated, i.e., FIRED. Lacking the power to award severance packages under the original code section in the first place, his position seems... well... UNTENABLE, shall we say politely. We are always very polite here on Weber County Forum, of course.

In my never-ending quest to simplify matters even to the point of allowing dimwits like our local board vandal "Mr. President" to understand them, I've created this color-coded code version. Remember, the text that appears in black is the version of the code that existed at the beginning of the year 2000, at the time Stuart Reid was originality hired. This is the code language that was in effect when Mr. Godfrey and Mr. Reid made their purported "oral arrangement." All the rest was added after Mr. Reid's hiring.

It isn't complicated. Read the code and determine for yourself, whether the Ogden city code had granted Mayor Godfrey the legal authority to grant Stuart Reid his $43,000 severance bonus, either at the time of his hiring, or at any other time after that.

Careful readers will note that the city council in 2004 passed a code amendment explicitly reserving the right to amend employee pay at any time at its own discretion.

I suspect that this is what Comrade Jorgenson had in mind when he suggested that the council might have to "tweak" a statute.

What he's talking about is covering the Mayor's butt. My insider "snitches" confirm this; and tell me that's going to happen AFTER tomorrow's election, regardless of how the election goes.

I'm telling you, we have to watch the gang of six like a hawk. There's apparently no limit to what they'll try to pull over on we dumb townsfolk.

I'll also issue a disclaimer. Due to the above-mentioned research contraints, I haven't researched the entire Ogden City Code as it existed at the time of Stuart Reid's initial hiring.

If Mayor Godfrey claims he had the severance bonus-issuing power by virtue of Section 2-6-9 though, he's definitely in need of better legal counsel than the ones he has advising him now.

And what say our gentle readers about this?