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Monday, April 05, 2010

Beese update/ City official's soft landing was secured years ago

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posted by Bob at Monday, April 05, 2010

3 Comments:

Anonymous Pioneer Press said...

When public works boss resigned, he got old job — a spot he had lobbied to create

By Dave Orrick
dorrick@pioneerpress.com
Updated: 04/04/2010 11:00:20 PM CDT


When he stepped down as director of St. Paul public works amid turmoil several weeks ago, Bruce Beese landed a six-figure salary in a position he had lobbied for but had barely held and which has rarely been held by anyone else in the history of the city.

Today, the obscure bureaucratic change Beese achieved years ago — on his second attempt — benefits him to the tune of nearly $15,000 in annual salary.

Beese didn't break any rules, and city human resources records suggest he's being paid fairly for the work he was doing at the time and is doing again today.

An examination of how this came to pass for Beese provides a peek into how taxpayer-paid government managers can have a hand in their own success and how limited the control is of elected officials if the worker falls out of favor. In fact, that's partly the point.

The fact that Beese's resignation came as Mayor Chris Coleman was embarrassed and outraged after TV cameras documented public works employees loafing on the job when they should have been filling potholes is irrelevant — at least in this context.

Coleman could have fired Beese from his directorship for no stated reason, or, as appears to be the case, told Beese he would await his resignation. It didn't matter either way. Under the city's civil service rules, as soon as Beese left his nearly $124,000-a-year position as director of public works, he was guaranteed the last position he had held, "administration manager," which pays roughly $111,500 a year, for at least an entire year.

The idea behind the rule is to protect workers with secure civil service jobs from political whims. The rule is intended to ensure such workers aren't afraid to take a political promotion by guaranteeing them a fallback.

How Beese landed in the administration manager job is a story that dates back to before Coleman was even a mayoral candidate.

Unlike some public works managers, Beese, the son of a University Avenue pawnshop owner, didn't rise through the ranks of manual labor. A certified public accountant, he came to work for the city in fall 1986 under the job classification "accounting clerk I," which paid about $16,900 a year.

His skills with numbers were apparent, and he steadily rose through the financial ranks of the department, which has the city's largest budget, generally encompassing nearly a third of all city spending including hard-to-forecast needs, such as snowplowing and salting.

By 2002, Beese was an "accountant V" and was considered a whiz with financials, said Bob Sandquist, director of public works under Mayor Randy Kelly and Beese's boss at the time.

"Beese, in my view, was one of the best finance guys in the whole city," Sandquist said in a recent interview. "With our complex budget — all those different accounts and sources of revenue and assessments — it was amazing what he could do with the numbers. I came to rely on him more and more."

Eventually, Beese was supervising other department brass, as well as the entire department budget, and Sandquist was planning to add to his duties.

But Beese was stuck in the job-classification of accountant V. There was no obvious position above him available in the department to accommodate more work — and offer more pay, aside from the annual raises called for under union contracts.

9:45 AM  
Anonymous story conclusion said...

In the private sector, if an employee thinks he deserves more pay, he can ask the boss for more money. That's not how it works in civil service. Instead, the employee, preferably with the backing of a supervisor, has to make his case for a "promotion by reallocation" to a different job classification — there are more than 600 citywide — through a series of prescribed steps.

"It's a lot of work," said Human Rights Director Angie Nalezny. "A lot of people want these type of promotions, but we certainly don't give them out like candy."

Success can mean a significant raise. For example, an accountant IV in the fire department four years ago successfully argued for a promotion to "administrative manager," which amounted to a nearly 9 percent bump in pay. (Administrative manager is different from Beese's current administration manager position.) The city council later renamed that classification "executive services manager" and moved it into a higher pay bracket, a move that affected only the single worker, city records show. In a four-year span, that employee, John Swanson, saw his annual salary jump from about $78,100 to roughly $118,000 today.

In fall 2004, Beese made his case to human resources in a 16-page form that included a hand-scribbled endorsement from Sandquist on the final pages.

In January 2005, HR rejected the request, concluding that the work Beese was doing was proper for accountant V, not "accounting manager" or "administration manager-public works."

Sandquist, who had once been promoted to the classification of "administrative coordinator" in a different department, thought it wasn't fair.

"Little did I know Kelly wouldn't be mayor for another four years," Sandquist said. "I certainly felt I would be around for another four years and Bruce would be under me the whole time. And he was doing more than accountant V work."

That fall, the pair tried again in what Sandquist described in a three-page letter to HR — typed this time — as "another go at it." In his letter, Sandquist specifically made the case for Beese to be reclassified as administration manager-public works. That job classification, which was created in 1991 and deactivated and reactivated a few times since, appears to have been held only twice before in the history of the city, although records don't readily reveal details such as who held it and for how long.

This time, Beese succeeded. On Jan. 9, 2006, Beese's salary would go up 12 percent as his promotion by reallocation became official.

However, he got a bigger promotion before then.

Coleman ousted Kelly in the fall elections, and on Dec. 29, 2005, he named Beese his interim director of public works to replace Sandquist, who, like most department heads, was out with the changing of the guard.

Technically, Interim Public Works Director Beese also served as administration manager-public works until he took a leave of absence from the latter post in April, when he became the permanent public works director.

All he needed was one day in the administration manager gig, Nalezny said, and he was guaranteed to have it as a fallback.

As public works director, Beese chose not to fill the position he vacated. That meant he avoided the awkward situation that would have resulted from Beese's resignation: He would have "bumped" his replacement out. As it stands today, Beese merely assumes his old post, which had been vacant but continued to gain raises in accordance with union contracts.

Last April, the official classification changed to simply "administration manager," a move that didn't affect the job's compensation.

Had Beese never ascended from accountant V, he would have been bumped back to that position and be making about $96,900. Instead, he's making roughly $111,500 a year.

Through a spokeswoman, Beese declined to be interviewed for this report.

9:45 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The first civil service rules came into effect more than a hundred years ago. They were designed to make sure that political appointments wouldn't take all of the government jobs after elections changed administrations. I mean you wouldn't want the mail man fired because there was a new president would you?

This rule concerning Beese, encourages experts who have civil service jobs to take a department head position and know that they can have their old job back if the administration changes. If you didn't do this, nobody on the inside would be willing to run a department unless they were close to retirement.

So, the Mayor can ask him to leave the appointed post, but he still has his civil service protection to maintain the position he left.

Its been that way since the 1880's.

JMONTOMEPPOF

Chuck Repke

12:54 PM  

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