State auditors scold STA over ‘bonuses’
Washington state auditors criticized the Spokane Transit Authority this week for giving out $47,246 in one-time payments last December to managerial employees.
The state classifies the payments as “retroactive compensation” – in layman’s terms: bonuses. STA officials call them “one-time lump sum salary adjustments.”
STA changed its policies in December to allow for such payments, said CEO Susan Meyer: “We feel strongly everything was in place.”
Public-sector bonuses are illegal under the state constitution unless they are rewards for reaching specific measurable goals above and beyond normal work duties and detailed ahead of time, something STA did not do.
But STA officials said the payments to 36 nonunion employees weren’t bonuses; they were simply a way to give the employees just compensation. STA board members further contend that if they hadn’t complimented staff for their hard work at the time they made the payments, the state auditor wouldn’t have even looked twice. At the December meeting, several board members commented on the staff’s hard work over the previous year.
“Had we not said anything, this finding would not have existed,” said STA board member and Spokane City Councilman Al French, who called the audit finding “terribly disappointing.” “With no compensation package before the board at this time, I’d like to say ‘Thank you’ to the staff.”
The statements during last December’s board meeting did raise red flags, prompting the review, said Allina Holmquist, audit manager for the Washington state auditor’s Spokane branch office.
The payments were more cost-effective than raises, said Meyer, because they cost taxpayers less over time.
They were the first raises STA managers and other non-union employees had received in two years.
“It came down to a legal read of a compliance requirement,” said Holmquist.
Holmquist said that STA won’t be penalized by the state, but added that the transit agency may face some political repercussions if it isn’t careful in the future.
“It’s an area that the public is very sensitive to,” said Holmquist of such salary-related issues.