Weak legal advice, strong contract

Editorial

State Attorney Mark Ober is right that the evidence does not support filing criminal charges against former Hillsborough County Administrator Pat Bean and County Attorney Renee Lee.

A thorough investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement into how Bean and Lee won pay raises without the knowledge of their employer, the Board of County Commissioners, uncovered no conspiracy, no falsified or altered records - in short, nothing a prosecutor could take to court.

That is no surprise. The whole affair is a tangle of petty, self-serving omissions, confusion and slipshod management.

Our reading of the report finds good reason for commissioners to have asked Bean to step down and sufficient cause to replace Lee as county attorney. The FDLE suspects Lee may have lied to the board about receiving an anonymous request to compile county e-mails connected to the probe of her mysterious raise. But since the e-mails were public records open to anyone, Lee broke no laws even if she did initiate the search herself. And there is no proof someone didn't call.

The core of the case involves a 1 percent raise that Bean and Lee received as a reward for efficiency. Lee's legal advice to Bean was that both top executives should get the raise because their contracts entitled them to any benefits other county employees received. It is a stretch to define a permanent pay increase as a "benefit."

Investigators determined that Bean did not make the final decision to award herself the salary increase. Certainly the commissioners didn't - they were surprised when an audit revealed it. The raise idea seems to have come from employees who reported to Bean, which would be inappropriate.

The lack of written policies and procedures made it impossible to hold anyone accountable for specific violations. That does not let Bean and Lee off the hook for presiding over such a system.

They were also politically wrong to give themselves an extra reward for responding to the slowing economy. Their positions demanded a timely response.

In hard times, painful cuts must be made, and it is essential that elected officials, taxpayers and rank-and-file county employees have confidence in the judgment and motives of managers.

Commissioner Mark Sharpe, who has been critical of Lee, told us Tuesday that she offers "average, at best, legal advice, from someone I'm not quite sure I trust."

Other commissioners also have complained.

Replacing her could be expensive. She makes more than $200,000 a year, and her contract does not allow her to be terminated for giving weak legal advice or for losing the confidence of the board.

She can be fired without severance only if she loses her license to practice law, is convicted of a felony or serious misdemeanor, is elected or appointed to another office or flagrantly neglects her duty.

Her contract expires in August 2014.

Commissioners should never again agree to so generous and lenient a contract.

Reasonable doubts remain about exactly how Lee and Bean got their raises, but the uncertainty highlights the reasonable doubt commissioners should have in Lee's judgment.

Replacing Lee is not an emergency, but commissioners should debate whether they can wait until 2014.