Huffington Post- San Francisco
OAKLAND,
Calif. -- A top official for the agency that manages the San Francisco Bay
Area's BART system earned more than $330,000 last year – even though she
didn't work a single day for the public transit agency, a newspaper reported
Sunday.
Bay Area Rapid Transit general manager Dorothy Dugger resigned
under pressure in May 2011, but stayed on the payroll for another 19 months and
was BART's highest-paid employee in 2012, the Bay Area News Group (http://bit.ly/102JORG)
reported.
Dugger,
57, cashed in nearly 80 weeks of unused vacation time, drawing paychecks and
full benefits. During that period, she earned nearly two extra months of
vacation, received management bonuses and medical insurance, and boosted her
pension benefits by more than $1,000 a month for life. When she left BART's
payroll in December, she began to draw an annual pension of $181,000, according
to the newspaper.
Dugger
said she was entitled to the money because she earned more than 3,100 hours of
unused vacation time during two decades with the light-rail agency.
"It
was time I earned my whole career at BART," she said. "It's a cost of
having the option" to save the vacation until the end of a career, she
said.
The value
of her unused vacation days soared after she took the top job in 2007 and
received a raise of nearly $100,000 a year because the unused time-off was paid
at her final, highest pay rate – not her rate when the time was accrued,
records show.
"She
was still on the payroll? I did not know this. It's startling," said James
Fang, a BART board member who tried to oust Dugger in 2011. "We have to
look at this."
Some BART
riders are also upset.
"I
hope it becomes a big stink," said BART patron Mitch Roland, of Alameda. "This is an agency
funded by taxpayers. ... They should have stricter controls."
The months
of extra pay were on top of the $920,000 that BART paid Dugger to leave in May
2011 after the agency's board botched an effort to fire her by violating public
meetings laws. She left amid mounting complaints about BART's service and
cleanliness as well as her leadership.
Dugger
told the newspaper she was proud of her time with BART. Asked if her lucrative
use of vacation time exposed a fiscal flaw in the agency, she said, "I
think BART's track record on fiscal management is quite solid."
see Huffington Post article Dorothy Dugger, Ex-BART General Manager, Made $330,000 While NoLonger Working For Agency
see Huffington Post article Dorothy Dugger, Ex-BART General Manager, Made $330,000 While NoLonger Working For Agency
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