CITY CONTROLLER WEIGHS IN ON BONUS-GATE!!!

Controller's Perspective

While there has been extensive media coverage and the criminal probe has broadened since being referred to the DA, the issues are fairly straightforward. Here are some very general answers to frequently asked questions.

Can city employees legally receive bonuses? Performance bonuses are available to city employees under certain circumstances and through various documentation methods. Bonuses also used to be awarded through an informal method involving temporary increases in base pay. All bonuses, however, require approval of department and Human Resource directors or the mayor. (Each council member is, in effect, director of a small city department, and the bonuses they grant are co-signed by the mayor pro tem.) Standard forms must be filed with an initiating document justifying the bonus attached.

Can staff sign for the director/elected official?
Approval authority for a range of actions resides with the department director, but that authority may be delegated, in writing, to certain subordinates. Such delegation may be restricted by time or type of action, but may also cover all duties of the director. That written delegation is filed with appropriate city departments. The subordinate can then sign, using his or her own signature, for the director/elected official for all actions granted by the document.

How much budget discretion is allowed within a department?
Department directors have authority to move funds among budget categories as long as they remain within overall limits and they document changes with the Finance and Administration Department. While budgets are regularly analyzed on a line-item basis by spending code, they are viewed as being in balance if the total departmental budget is in balance.

How do council budgets differ?
Council members have control over their individual budgets and are expected to keep them in balance. But for reporting purposes all 14 offices, plus the Mayor Pro Tem Office, are shown in the aggregate. A council office might be under or (temporarily) over budget, but the total remains in balance.F&A monitors each office and keeps the council member or designee informed, providing a monthly record of available funds, amount spent to date, and amounts remaining by spending category. Problems seldom occur except when a council member leaves office at the end of a term, which falls in the middle of the fiscal year, and unexpected bills surface.

Doesn't the city have checks and balances?
Of course. These were not large lump sum amounts, but smaller bonuses, spread out over a period of months across two fiscal years. For each month, appropriate documentation was attached, signed by a staff member with signature authority for the Office of the Mayor Pro Tem, with an initiating memo that appeared to have been initialed by Council Member Alvarado.The bonus requests were processed by the Central Payroll Division of Finance and Administration. Money was apparently moved among various line items within the budget to cover the large payroll increase, but the overall budget was not exceeded. Controller's Office staff merely performed an audit function to determine whether the expenditure was authorized, there were funds available in that particular category, and that the check issued was correct.

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