"'Star' employees will be made public"

By Jenna Portnoy, PhillyBurbs.com, November 5, 2009:

A procedure will indicate when an employee separates from Bucks with a payment or perk beyond what is typical.

What a difference an asterisk can make.

Or, in this case three. That's the number of stars that will appear on publicly released personnel lists next to the names of departing county employees to denote a "separation agreement."

The procedural change is significant because commissioners recently gave two top mental health department administrators retirement perks via agreements about which the public - and the controller - knew nothing.

The matter became public when this newspaper reported that Phil Fenster retired from the county on Sept. 15, but was back to work for Bucks the following week with a $75,000-a-year consulting gig with a county-affiliated agency. The private, nonprofit Bucks County Drug and Alcohol Commission didn't have to make the hire public because of how the job is funded.

The commission will reimburse the county for the cost of extending the same health benefits Fenster received as mental health/mental retardation administrator through Oct. 1, 2010, the retirement agreement states.

The county will cover health care benefits through the end of this year only for the other mental health employee, Mary Richter, her retirement agreement says.

Even though the county pays health care costs in advance, Controller Ray McHugh opposed paying Richter and Fenster's health care bills in principle - until commissioners voted on the deals in public.

"My concern is that there will be notice of any expenditure pursuant to county money," McHugh told commissioners at a meeting in Middletown on Wednesday. The controller is the county's chief auditor; the office pays the bills and issues paychecks.

From now on, he said, the stars will "denote anything that involves an expenditure of county money other than through the standard personnel practices for hiring or separation."

Commissioners Jim Cawley and Charley Martin obliged by re-adopting the agreements Wednesday; Democrat Diane Marseglia voted 'no.'