We were glad to see Gov. Bill Ritter acted quickly and appropriately to take the air out of the golden parachutes created by the Owens administration.
Ritter rolled back a far-too-generous vacation and sick-leave accrual policy created by Gov. Bill Owens’ chief of staff, allowing some of Owens’ top appointees to collect more than $331,000 of unused time when they left office.
Capping the amount of time that can accrue will prevent future abuses of the system. But we still think it’s necessary to determine whether rules were followed in making the recent payouts.
Rep. Bernie Buescher, D-Grand Junction, ever the diplomat, recently tiptoed around the idea of asking the state auditor to review whether payments were made appropriately to top Owens officials – and only after being prompted by reporters. “Our accounting is not as tight as it could be,” Buescher said. “We’re very frustrated too. We don’t like this. We’re the legislative branch, and we’re seeing something the executive branch has done wrong.”
Buescher and other Joint Budget Committee members are concerned about the bonuses and the fact Owens’ staffers were allowed to accrue what appears to be unlimited sick and vacation leave, and might have been overpaid thousands of dollars. The payouts totaled at least $331,000. Most officials collected more than $20,000. The largest check went to the former head of the state Department of Human Services, who collected $55,528 on the way out the door.
Just as the new Congress is beginning to exercise an oversight role its predecessor abdicated, Colorado lawmakers should not shy away from their own oversight responsibilities. Calling for a state audit would be an obvious step toward establishing whether the sweetheart deals accorded to Owens’ appointees were the result of bad rule-setting or a result of rule-breaking.
The Denver Post in recent weeks has disclosed actions by the Owens administration that boosted pay and protected jobs for top officials. Fourteen executive directors received more than $74,000 in cash bonuses. More than two dozen top appointees received improper contract extensions. An audit would determine if anyone was overpaid with taxpayer dollars – or if payments were misrepresented to boost pension levels.
At least now with Ritter’s actions, taxpayers won’t have to worry about a similar situation when he leaves office.
