LITTLE ROCK — The Little Rock Sanitary Sewer Committee will begin looking for a replacement to head the city’s wastewater utility by May 1 as current Chief Executive Officer Reggie Corbitt makes plans to retire by the end of 2014.
The transition plan and retirement deadline came at the request of the Sanitary Sewer Committee after an investigation into about $236,000 in longevity bonuses given out to employees in December. The investigation turned up no wrongdoing in the payouts, but the committee noted that Corbitt needed to better communicate with the committee and the Little Rock Board of Directors.
The committee also asked Corbitt to come up with a timeline for his retirement and a plan to help transition the next Little Rock Wastewater Utility chief into the position.
“Our whole goal in this is that Reggie just has such institutional knowledge, we feel like we would be doing an injustice if we didn’t capture that,” said Ken Griffey, chairman of the Sanitary Sewer Committee.
“There are not that many captains of utilities that have his kind of experience, and we wanted to make sure first to have him write in detail everything we need, and secondly to give ourselves enough time.”
Corbitt presented a retirement and transition plan to the committee at its February meeting last week. After an executive session, the committee presented its own plan and voted to accept it.
The committee’s plan calls for choosing an executive search committee by May 1, with member orientation by July 1.
Under Corbitt’s plan, the committee would have formed by July 1. It also included him as a member of the search committee.
“At this point, that committee has not been formed,” Griffey said. “When it is, it will be made up of folks from the community who have a good institutional knowledge into how city utilities work and experience in hiring other top level CEOs.”
Corbitt was out of the office Friday and unavailable for comment, utility staff members said.
The committee’s approved transition plan calls for recommendations for an executive search firm by Sept. 1, then a request for bids on that role and, finally, selection of a firm no later than Dec. 1.
The selected search firm will recommend candidates to interview by March 1, 2014. The committee set a goal of hiring a new CEO by Sept. 1, 2014.
Griffey said the search would likely be nationwide to increase the utility’s chances of finding a replacement in the plan’s time frame.
Under the approved plan, Corbitt would retire once that person is hired and work as a consultant as needed through December 2014. If Corbitt is asked to consult anytime after that, the plan asks that the committee approve the expenditure first.
Corbitt’s plan had called for the new CEO to be hired first as a deputy CEO, then have that person take the reins of the agency in November 2014. Corbitt would then have worked as a consultant for four months to help the new CEO’s transition.
The full plan, as well as a review of the investigation into the bonuses, is to be presented to the Little Rock Board of Directors on Tuesday.
The utility is mostly autonomous, but the city’s Board of Directors must approve rate increases and some financial matters, including the issuance of bonds. The board also appoints members to the Sanitary Sewer Committee, the utility’s governing body.
A letter Griffey read to Corbitt at the committee meeting last week urged consistent communication with Little Rock city leaders.
“From this point forward, the Chairman of this committee is to be a part of all communications to the city from the [Little Rock Wastewater Utility] as well as any presentation in front of the city board.”
The letter also states that any staff changes at the utility must now be reviewed with a transition subcommittee, which will be led by Vice Chairman Marilyn Perryman. It also requires discussion of all finance and budget issues with that transition subcommittee and the full Sanitary Sewer Committee.
“There are three entities involved in this: City Hall, Little Rock Wastewater and the Sanitary Sewer Committee,” Griffey said Friday. “That triangle has not always communicated as well as it could, and these measures are really an effort to do that. If we are going to ask our CEO to communicate better and be more transparent, that is something we also should make an effort to do ... to take our own advice.”
Corbitt has led the utility for 28 years and at one point, he was the highest-paid city employee with a salary of $185,099. He was knocked down to the No. 2 position in 2012 by Ron Mathieu, the executive director of the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field, who was given a raise last week to $197,600.
Corbitt has also drawn his share of scrutiny including over awarding the bonuses late last year.
The utility sent out checks worth $1,250 to all employees who had stayed with the utility through three years of austerity measures and hiring freezes - about 190 total. The city Board of Directors raised concerns about the bonuses because they were given after the utility had asked for and received board approval to raise sewer rates.
The increases were for all customers - residential and business - and amounted to an average of 12.75 percent per month last year and an additional 8 percent per month in January. The rates will go up again in 2014 by an average of 7 percent and in 2016 by 4.75 percent.
The increases were needed to pay for fixes required under the 2001 settlement of a lawsuit filed against the utility by the Sierra Club, a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization. The settlement required the sewer utility to fix overflow problems that caused raw sewage to seep into groundwater during heavy rain.
The lawsuit and its settlement happened under Corbitt’s leadership.
The utility was also the subject of other investigations taken up last year by the financial crimes division of the Little Rock Police Department.
The first investigation involved whether the utility had misspent funds by paying off a past employee’s debt to the Internal Revenue Service. The investigation found that the utility had made a mistake when issuing a severance check to the employee. The back-taxes and penalties amounted to more than $24,000.
The investigation expanded to include a pilot sewer-line replacement program conducted in 2009-10 that used sewer lines from prominent residents, including at least one city director, an ex-CEO of a bank and a former state representative.
Those volunteers, many of whom were asked to participate, allowed the utility to use closed-circuit cameras to inspect sewer lines for cracks or breaks. In return, each participant received a city-required pipe-fitting - which allows the lines to be flushed for inspection or other purposes - and a back flow preventer - which prevents leaks from sewer mains from backing up into the homeowners’ lines or houses.
The total cost of the inspection and equipment installation was about $1,050 per volunteer.
The investigation report found that the utility had advertised for volunteers, and that the inspections and improvements appeared to be done after an “advertised, documented and sanctioned study.”
In years past, Corbitt has been at the center of at least two other investigations.
Corbitt was chastised in 2007 for not following Arkansas procurement laws when the utility bought $140,000 worth of furniture for its newly built headquarters on Clear Water Drive.
The staff had treated furniture pieces as separate purchases, all of which were under $20,000. The law requires purchases of $20,000 or more to receive approval by the utility’s governing body and that those type of purchases be treated as one item requiring approval.
Corbitt and other top utility staff members were rebuked in 1995 for taking their spouses with them at public expense on out-of-town business trips. The city’s travel reimbursement policy does not cover spouses or children.
Arkansas, Pages 17 on 02/17/2013