City manager’s departure, pay during 2020 is under scrutiny

A nearly $1 million payment to former Fontana City Manager Ken Hunt made him the highest paid city manager in California in 2020, though he didn’t work a day that year.

The California State Controller’s Office cast a spotlight on Fontana last week after updating its public pay database with figures for 2020. In the state ranking, Hunt surpassed the next closest city manager’s wages by roughly $350,000.

The high pay and the lack of

explanation for it from Fontana has raised eyebrows among taxpayer advocates. While golden handshakes for public employees aren’t unusual, most are in the $500,000 to $600,000 range, experts said.

Robert Fellner, executive director of Transparent California, has spent years collecting, compiling and publicizing public employees’ salaries. He’s seen his share of generous severance packages, he said. But when presented with the $932,623 paid to Hunt in 2020, his first instinct was that the number had to be an error.

“Paying someone $1 million a year for not working is the highest I’ve ever seen,” he said.

Officially, Hunt announced his retirement in July 2019, when he was roughly halfway through a five-year contract. City officials in news reports at the time painted it as a mutual decision. It wasn’t until months later that it was revealed that the city manager and the city had signed a settlement agreement outlining the terms of his resignation.

At the time, Mayor Acquanetta Warren stated Hunt “resigned to retire” and declined to discuss the reason why. Hunt’s contract and the settlement agreement suggest Hunt either received a sweetheart deal or had claims that could have cost the city much more.

If Hunt had resigned willingly, Fontana wouldn’t have owed him any severance, according to his most recent contract. Instead, the City Council went above and beyond the 12 months of severance required if it had fired him without cause. Though he stopped working in July 2019, the city agreed to pay him not only for the rest of 2019, but all of 2020 as well.

The extra months, which were counted as paid leave, allowed Hunt to reach 30