Ex-CAO Deepak Joshi received $567,339 severance for two months’ work in 2015

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This article was published 29/06/2016 (3418 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Whispers and speculation swirled around Deepak Joshi when he was unexpectedly suspended from his position as the city’s acting CAO 16 months ago. And more fuel was added to those rumours when it was revealed Wednesday that the former city employee was paid more than $500,000 for two months’ work.

The city’s annual financial compensation disclosure report listed Joshi as the city’s top-earner in 2015, at $567,339 – even though he had been suspended with pay from his job in mid-January 2015 and resigned the following month.

Joshi is now the interim executive director of Selkirk-based Red River Planning District.

The previous year’s report listed Joshi’s salary as acting CAO for 2014 as $245,899.

The financial compensation disclosure report annually details city staff who earned $50,000 or more. The report was posted on the city’s website late Wednesday morning.

A civic spokeswoman said the city would not provide an explanation for Joshi’s compensation, other than what was stated in the report, that the amount reflects “any combination of salary and taxable benefits, overtime, retroactive pay adjustments, retirement allowance, sick pay cash out, vacation pay cash out, back pay and severance pay. The amounts do not include payments made or benefits accrued in relation to pension plans.”

Mayor Brian Bowman, who suspended Joshi in January 2015 on the grounds that he had lost confidence in him, would not answer questions about why the payment to the former city employee had been so generous. Bowman’s office issued a statement that failed to mention the mayor had suspended Joshi and said only that he had resigned after losing the mayor’s confidence. The statement said that Bowman was elected to bring change to city hall and that he had been advised he is “not legally able to discuss specific details relating to individual personnel and human resources matters.”

But the mystery and the size of the payout left many asking questions.

“That’s a mindboggling amount of money,” said Todd McKay, Prairie director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “To throw out this kind of money with no kind of explanation, with no justification to taxpayers, is completely unacceptable.”

Transcona Coun. Russ Wyatt said the fact Bowman’s office failed to mention that Joshi’s dismissal had been triggered by Bowman’s decision to first suspend Joshi demands an explanation.

“If Joshi had voluntarily resigned, then there would be no need for any kind of compensation, let alone more than half a million dollars,” Wyatt said. “The mayor should answer the question.”

Coun. Ross Eadie said the size of the payout – more than twice Joshi’s salary from the year before – is a clear indication that city hall had bought out Joshi’s contract.

Eadie said Joshi’s suspension was explained to councillors during a closed-door briefing in connection with the controversy over CentreVenture’s decision to grant an exclusive option to True North Sports & Entertainment for the property at 220 Carlton St., where council expected a hotel to be built.

Bowman had accused CentreVenture of withholding information from his office about the True North deal and the problems associated with attracting a hotel developer to the Carlton property – accusations which CentreVenture and Mark Chipman vehemently denied.

There were rumours at the time that Joshi’s suspension was linked directly to the Carlton situation or to the RCMP investigation into the police headquarters buildings, which remains ongoing.

McKay said the secretive manner in which Joshi was originally suspended and now the further secrecy around his final payout points to a lack of transparency and accountability at city hall.

“Whenever you have a lack of transparency, it’s bad for everybody, because the guilty get away free and the innocent get treated like they’re guilty,” McKay said. “It’s bad for everybody regardless of what actually happened in the background. That’s why you have to have clear policies in place for this sort of thing.”

Joshi had been the city’s chief operating officer under former CAO Phil Sheegl, who quit city hall in October 2013 when it appeared council was prepared to dismiss him for what independent audits concluded had been his mishandling of the fire hall replacement program, the construction of a fire station on land not owned by the city, and the police headquarters project.

Joshi was promoted by council to acting CAO and held that post until suspended by Bowman following his election.

Eadie said Joshi would have protected himself with a termination clause when he was promoted to acting CAO and the final payout points to that.

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“This was Mayor Bowman’s decision and it cost us $560,000,” Eadie said. “Bowman decided he couldn’t work with him and that’s the cost of that decision.

“That was the price to pay to buy out (Joshi’s) contract. It was two years’ salary.”

The city’s new CAO, Doug McNeil, posted his contract on the city’s website last week and it contains provisions for his termination. The contract states McNeil receives no extra compensation if he voluntarily resigns of if he’s fired for cause. However, the contract says for any other circumstance, McNeil is entitled to a year’s notice or severance payment in lieu of notice, with a 12 per cent salary top up to compensate for lost benefits salary.

Statement from the Office of Mayor Brian Bowman:

In February 2015, the executive policy committee accepted the resignation of Deepak Joshi from the City of Winnipeg. Mayor Bowman has been very clear in his comments about this matter that he was elected to bring change to City Hall, and also that he had lost confidence in the Acting CAO at the time. We have been advised by the public service that we are not legally able to discuss specific details relating to individual personnel and human resource matters beyond what has been publicly disclosed in the Public Sector Compensation Disclosure Report. This is why Mayor Bowman was very pleased the new chief administrative officer has agreed to make his employment contract publicly available, allowing for all details relating to his conditions of employment to be public.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca

Full disclosure

*Top 20 earners highlighted in green

*Employees of the Winnipeg Police Service are not identified by name.