Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson says the city shouldn’t pay out more than $400,000 in severance to former City Manager T.C. Broadnax. He raised questions in a memo to the city attorney about how Broadnax’s resignation played out.
Broadnax announced his he was leaving the city in late-February “following suggestions that [he] resign by a majority of the City Council,” according to a news release from that time.
A memo sent by Broadnax a few weeks after the announcement detailed who he'd talked to — and when — about the decision. That memo categorized the meetings as council members suggesting he resign.
Johnson's memo said that the suggestion to resign triggered a clause in Broadnax’s contract that would require the city to pay a “lump sum…equal to twelve (12) months of this then-current base salary.”
“I am writing to express my opposition to the City of Dallas paying any severance to Mr. Broadnax,” Johnson’s memo said. “The background and timeline of these events raise serious questions about the legitimacy of this alleged ‘involuntary separation’.”
Johnson cited a late-February WFAA story which alleges Broadnax worked with council members to orchestrate his resignation. The story does not explicitly state source of the information — only attributing the details of the plan to “four Dallas City Council member who spoke with WFAA.”
“This account has yet to be denied by Mr. Broadnax or by any of the City Councilmembers who were reportedly involved. WFAA has not retracted the story, nor have they issued any corrections,” Johnson said in his memo. “There has been no indication anyone has asked them to do so.”
KERA News reached out to Broadnax for comment through the City of Austin media office.
"Austin City Manager, T.C. Broadnax will not be discussing the Dallas Mayor's opposition to severance being paid," a City of Austin spokesperson told KERA in an email.
KERA News also reached out to the City of Dallas for comment on Johnson’s memo and the allegations surrounding Broadnax’s resignation. A city spokesperson said the City Manager's Office — now led by former Broadnax deputy Kimberly Bizor Tolbert — "has no comment."
Johnson said that all the council members Broadnax identified as suggesting he resign have “both publicly and privately stated support for him and his work as the city manager.” And some of them have previously voted to approve a raise for Broadnax, Johnson added.
Shortly after Broadnax’s announcement, other details of where he’d end up next started to emerge. In March, KUT reported that the Austin City Council had tapped Broadnax to become the city’s next city manager.
"I am honored and I look forward to the City Council’s vote to allow me to serve as Austin’s next City Manager," Broadnax was quoted saying at the time. "With the continued growth of our state’s capital city, I am mindful of the critical needs we must urgently address and I am committed to doing so with a collaborative, transparent, inclusive and equitable approach."
Broadnax will make a salary of $470,000 in Austin. That’s among the largest city manager salaries in Texas, according to KUT.
Johnson’s memo questioned the somewhat quick turnaround from Broadnax’s resignation announcement to the news that he would become Austin’s city manager. He said it was planned just as WFAA reported it.
“If this is indeed the case — as the available evidence currently supports — it is wholly inaccurate to characterize Mr. Broadnax's separation as ‘involuntary’,” Johnson writes. “Therefore, the severance clause…should not apply, and the City of Dallas should have no obligation to pay Mr. Broadnax nearly half a million dollars from Dallas’ taxpayers.”
Johnson tasked the city attorney to clarify the following:
“Considering the highly questionable nature and background of Mr. Broadnax’s resignation, should Mr. Broadnax be paid severance pay from the City of Dallas?”
Broadnax started as Austin’s city manager earlier this month.
Got a tip? Email Nathan Collins at ncollins@kera.org. You can follow Nathan on Twitter @nathannotforyou.
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