The Regional Transportation District’s Board of Directors could name the agency’s new general manager and chief executive by the end of the year — six months before current CEO Debra Johnson’s contract expires and on the heels of Colorado voters electing new directors to the board.
RTD leaders on Monday said the proposed timeline, which includes the board voting on a finalist in December, is not an effort to push Johnson out before her contract ends in May. Community members and RTD candidates, meanwhile, criticized the move because newly elected directors would not have a formal say in hiring the new CEO outside of the vote finalizing the new leader’s contract in January.
discussed the timeline, as well as a potential job description and pay range for the agency’s next CEO and general manager, at a meeting Monday morning. The full RTD board will consider the timeline, job description and pay at a meeting Sept. 22.
Under the , RTD will post the job Sept. 28, accept applications until Nov. 20, name a finalist Dec. 4, vote on a new CEO on Dec. 18, and vote on the new CEO’s contract on Jan. 5, the same day any new directors elected in November will be sworn into office.
Johnson’s contract expires in May and she has said she will not seek a renewal.
It’s not clear how the proposed timeline will affect her employment and there have not been any discussions to that effect, Director Chris Gutschenritter told The Denver Post. It’s possible the new CEO will not start until May or there could be overlap between Johnson and her successor to share knowledge, he said.
The faster timeline is not about rushing Johnson out the door, Gutschenritter said, but about leaving plenty of time to find the transit agency’s next leader, rather than hiring someone “just in time.”
During the committee meeting, several community members and asked directors to move back the timeline, even by a few weeks, so that incoming board members will have more say in the process.
Lance Longenbohn, the president of RTD’s union, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1001, said the board needs to be careful and deliberate in the CEO search to give voters confidence.
“Hurrying the process in the last three months of the year is not the way to do that,” he said.
Boulder resident Gary Sprung told committee members that picking a CEO will be the new board’s most important task.
“You, the current board, are planning to take that option away from the new board, and I find that deplorable and outrageous,” he said. “It likely ignores or thwarts the will of the voters.”
Six of the 10 RTD candidates on the ballot in November sent a letter to the committee asking to change the timeline so incoming directors can have more say, and several also voiced the request during the committee meeting’s public comment period.
The faster timeline was a surprise to the candidates, who first learned about it Friday, shortly before the meeting materials were posted online, District O candidate Jack Rosenthal said. District O includes Boulder and Boulder County generally west of Lafayette.
“The ideal scenario is we all agree on a new GM/CEO… but if the incoming board and the outgoing board don’t agree, it’s the outgoing board that has the vote,” Rosenthal said.
Michael Farrington, RTD candidate for District K, which includes Commerce City, Brighton and Thornton, told the committee that he’s concerned that new directors only being able to vote on the last step could result in needing to start the search over.
“What I really don’t want to see is the incoming board feel like their hands are tied and not have much of a choice,” he said.
Most of the RTD directors on the committee, however, said they were in favor of the plan to select a new CEO by the end of the year.
Both Gutschenritter and Board Chair Patrick O’Keefe said they are committed to giving the incoming directors a voice in the search and hiring process as soon as they are elected.
“They would not have a vote on public record, but they would have a voice, and we have committed to not moving forward without their consensus,” Gutschenritter said in the meeting.
O’Keefe urged people to focus on the good, including how the RTD board has worked together in the past. There is always the option to slow down the search as needed, he said.
“There are 10 directors coming back, there are five being elected. I think we are respecting that in bringing them in on the process while respecting those that currently have an election certificate,” he said. “I ask everyone to focus on the positivity of this group and not foment fear, division or what-ifs down the road.”
RTD’s board is looking at a base salary for the new CEO of anywhere from $411,000 to $509,000, according to the committee documents.
Several directors also raised concerns about the search committee for the new CEO being made up entirely of white people.
That does not reflect RTD’s ridership, Director Michael Guzman said.
“You’re not listening, or you’re not allowing or you’re not making space at the table for people of color,” he said, adding that it’s disrespectful to the communities RTD will need support from to pass a potential ballot measure.
“The optics of that look really bad, all over the district, and I think it would be a mistake,” he said.
The RTD board’s search for a new chief executive is one of several major changes and challenges facing the Front Range transit provider. Currently made up of 15 elected directors, the board itself will fundamentally change during the 2028 election when a new state law kicks in, slashing six board seats to make it a nine-member board with and four appointed by the governor.
Johnson, who was hired in 2020 as the first woman to lead the agency, has dealt with plummeting ridership, an unbalanced budget, service cuts and a decline in the public’s opinion of RTD during her tenure.
Agency leaders are planning to cut routes and services by $20 million to stem the tide of the deficit, well below the $62 million in cuts Johnson and other agency leaders recommended in the spring.
Johnson did not respond to an email seeking comment on the CEO search timeline. In a statement, agency spokesperson Marta Sipeki said Johnson’s employment agreement and the CEO search are entirely separate matters.
“The Board is focused on identifying the next leader for RTD and any overlap with the current CEO or interim bridge between the current CEO and next CEO will be addressed as those circumstances may or may not arise,” Sipeki said.
