10:00 PM PST on Friday, January 15, 2010

Cassie MacDuff

A sign of how serious San Bernardino County supervisors were about hiring Greg Devereaux as county administrative officer is the 10-year, water-tight contract they gave him.

Most county administrators serve at the pleasure of their boards. They’re constantly counting votes to make sure they please at least three of five masters.

Devereaux’s contract requires a super-majority of four votes to remove him, and the only reason he can be fired in the next 10 years is for malfeasance in office.

Government experts say they’ve never seen a contract like it.

But it was a smart move. After all, San Bernardino’s top appointed post had been a revolving door, with five administrators since the bribery scandal of 1999.

Devereaux’s predecessor got on the wrong side of three supes, and they let him go “without cause.”

Most county administrators have brief tenures, said Jim Wiltshire, deputy director of the California State Association of Counties. Thirty of 58 county administrators have been on the job three years or less, he said.

Devereaux’s contract offers stability. The only reasons he can be discharged are official misconduct, flagrant or repeated neglect of duties or “failure to follow the clear directions of the board … given in a duly noticed meeting.”

That last one is important: It means supervisors can’t approach him individually with extra demands that haven’t been agreed to by a majority in public session.

Devereaux’s no-cut contract shows the board wants him to be able to speak freely without fear of a political firing, said Wiltshire, who was San Bernardino County’s lobbyist for five years.

The contract makes him CAO for the first five years and a “special advisor” for the next five. Absent malfeasance, the county must pay him for the duration.

That’s an extremely unusual separation agreement, said Douglas Johnson, fellow at The Rose Institute of State and Local Government. Most CAOs and city managers have severance packages providing three to nine months of pay. “In unstable situations, they typically offer big severance packages,” Johnson said.

Devereaux said he has never seen a 10-year agreement. The county offered it so he wouldn’t have to sacrifice retirement benefits.

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