Council grills watershed commissioner, Reed staffers over controversial pay raises

• Joeff Davis/CL File
• Atlanta Department of Watershed Management Commissioner Jo Ann Macrina

A controversial decision to grant five of the city’s high-ranking watershed department employees generous pay raises amid an ongoing theft investigation yesterday turned into a full-blown interrogation courtesy of the Atlanta City Council.

Jo Ann Macrina, commissioner of the city’s watershed department, has been blasted for giving five employees pay bumps between $15,000 and $25,000 in January. Many critics questioned the decision at a time when her department has been unable to determine how hundreds of thousand of dollars went missing, along with accusations of gross mismanagement from rank-and-file employees. Late last week, Mayor Kasim Reed clawed back those salary increases, saying that he did not authorize them. Meanwhile, Councilwoman Felicia Moore has ordered a complete investigation into the department.

The controversy spilled over into yesterday’s council meeting. Councilmembers barraged Macrina, Human Resources Commissioner Yvonne Cowser Yancy,‎ and Reed’s Deputy Chief of Staff Katrina Taylor Parks with questions for several hours about why those employees received raises at a time when the department remained under investigation.

Parks said the pay hikes were allowed under a measure passed by Council in October 2012 to correct salary discrepancies throughout the watershed department. But she admitted the salary bumps were “not the proper judgment at the right time.” The AJC’s Katie Leslie nicely summarized Macrina’s response:

Macrina said the raises were necessary to retain top talent. The embattled agency, which oversees a $4 billion federally ordered upgrade to the city’s water and sewer system, has an attrition rate near 40 percent, she said.

“Part of the reason we are losing good people is we can’t pay them the salaries they are getting elsewhere,” said Macrina, who joined the agency in 2011 from the DeKalb County Department of Watershed Management. “I try to attract people not just with a competitive salary but also an opportunity to make a difference, but the opportunity to make a difference can only go so far.”

Nevertheless, those arguments didn’t sit well with many councilmembers, most notably with Moore, who lambasted Macrina for not being able to properly or promptly explain why those employees received the raises.

WABE’s Jonathan Shapiro captured part of Moore’s heated exchange (“In Council meeting. The Blood Moon is in effect,” she later tweeted about the meeting):

Councilwoman Felicia Moore said she was unaware Macrina had such authority. She suggested vague language in the 2012 legislation had been “used and abused” and demanded Macrina produce hard evidence justifying the five-figure raises.

Macrina: “We have a long table that we used for our analysis as well as information from other utilities and... ”

Moore: “I want to see all of it. How about that? I don’t want to see a recreation in one sheet. I want to see all of it.”

Council asked Michael Geisler, the city’s interim chief operating officer, to freeze similar pay raises moving forward until the issue gets sorted out and the investigation is completed.