The Snohomish County employee at the center of a hiring controversy will not have his high-paying temporary job next year, his managers told the Snohomish County Council on Tuesday.
James Lee’s higher-ups in the county’s planning department said Tuesday that his name was put in next year’s budget by mistake.
Lee was a former campaign official for County Executive Aaron Reardon’s 2003 campaign. His name is listed in Reardon’s 2005 budget and in earlier budget documents for a new economic development position that will pay $77,408 a year.
However, that job apparently expires at the end of the year.
“I failed to catch that and have it removed,” said Bob Derrick, deputy director of the planning department and Lee’s supervisor.
Lee was hired in March as a temporary employee at a $75,524-a-year salary rate. He has been doing research on economic development issues in the Office of Housing and Community Development.
County Council members asked last week for a briefing on Lee’s work for the county after raising concern about the amount Lee is being paid in his temporary position.
Councilman Kirke Sievers, chairman of the council’s finance committee, asked that Lee be present to answer questions. Planning department officials, though, came without Lee to the meeting to talk generally about the county’s plans to promote economic development in the future.
Craig Ladiser, director of the planning department, said the strategy has changed on how the county wants to promote economic development.
Earlier, planning officials had proposed creating an economic development team made up mostly of existing staff.
Now, Ladiser said, the department realizes it must find a manager who has economic development expertise and the skills to lead a coordinated job-growth effort. But that means paying a higher salary than what’s in the budget for an economic development coordinator.
While the meeting skirted the hard corners of the controversy – the particulars of Lee’s hiring and his paid role on Reardon’s campaign didn’t come up – Councilman Gary Nelson pressed the most pointed comments and questions.
“That’s a significant amount of money,” Nelson said of Lee’s salary. He asked about Lee’s job description and how Lee’s supervisors would know when his temporary duties were done.
“I would never hire a temporary employee unless I had a specific idea of what the person was going to do and what the outcome was going to be,” Nelson said.
Sievers also asked how many other temporary employees in the planning department share Lee’s pay range. Ladiser said he didn’t know exactly how many other temporary employees are in such high-paying jobs, but he guessed there were none.
Lee has declined to speak directly to The Herald about his job. He did not respond to a set of e-mail questions on Tuesday.
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