KPLU Local News
(2010-01-19)
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OLYMPIA, WA
(N3) -
When you think of bonuses you probably think of Wall Street. But over the past two years, the state of Washington has paid out more than 9-thousand cash awards to state employees totaling nearly 2-million dollars. This bonus bonanza happened just as the economy was tanking and a nine-billion dollar hole was being ripped in the state budget. In addition to the performance bonuses, nearly 600 state government middle managers received "Growth and Development" pay increases in 2008 and early 2009. Those totaled another one-point-seven million dollars. KPLU's Austin Jenkins reports.
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It's the kind of bureaucratic report with a boring title that gets posted on a state website and no one really notices. The Washington State Government Performance-Based Incentives and Recognition Annual Report. But peek inside and it raises a lot of questions. Like why did an IT employee at the Washington State Investment Board get a 13-thousand dollar bonus in February of last year?
Theresa Whitmarsh: "That's actually a recruitment bonus and a retention bonus."
Theresa Whitmarsh is Executive Director of the State Investment Board.
Theresa Whitmarsh: "Essentially we hired a guy who was a Harvard Kennedy School graduate with really deep tech experience, our head of IT had retired."
Whitmarsh says when her agency hired this Harvard wunderkind he was promised a bonus for each of the first three years he stayed on the job. But it didn't stop there. Last year, the Investment Board paid out 28 cash awards worth 121-thousand dollars. It's important to note the Investment Board is not funded by the state general fund. It gets its money from managing retirement and pension funds for the state. But it's also true those funds took a 15-billion dollar loss during what's become known as the Great Recession. So why give bonuses when the funds were performing so poorly? Again Theresa Whitmarsh.
Theresa Whitmarsh: "The bulk of the awards were to a team that oversaw the custody bank conversion and transferring 70-billion from one bank to another is no small or easy feat and it was a huge endeavor and it was a tremendous success."
Whitmarsh estimates changing banks will save 35-million dollars over ten years. She adds that no investment officers got bonuses, just back office staff. While the State Investment Board was one of the most generous givers of bonuses, it was not the most generous. That title goes to Attorney General Rob McKenna's office. In 2009, he paid out 901 cash awards worth nearly 600-thousand dollars. Janelle Guthrie is Communications Director for the Republican AG. She says the bonuses rewarded work done in 2008 - before the economic crash - and that the office came in 20-million dollars under budget that year.
Janelle Guthrie: "So based on that performance and the fact that we had felt like that this was compensation due our staff for meeting rigorous goals. That money was then provided them in their February paychecks."
Employees were also awarded paid days off. Guthrie has a specific example of an Assistant Attorney General who handled several U-S Supreme Court cases and she says clearly earned a 3-thousand dollar bonus.
Janelle Guthrie: "He had the primary responsibility for drafting seven briefs in four different cases, successfully argued a fifth which is a record number within the AGO. Additionally he received the National Association of Attorneys' General Best Brief Award. That's the kind of person who would receive the 3-thousand dollar compensation."
And 3 extra days of paid vacation. All told, 9,323 bonuses were paid to Washington state employees in 2008 and 2009. According to the report, the average check was for 204-dollars. Normally Republican State Senator Joe Zarelli, a budget hawk, would support incentivizing public employees to go above and beyond. But the timing of the bonuses concerns him.
Joe Zarelli: "To the public perceptibly they'd say that's wrong when thousands of people are losing their jobs across the state and the private sector we're pretty much doing business as usual in state government. "
But the bonanza is over - at least for now. Washington's cash bonus program is on hold by order of the Department of Personnel because of the budget and economic crisis. I'm Austin Jenkins in Olympia. © Copyright 2012, N3
