Millbrae Overpaid Former City Manager $17,900

Former City Manger Ralph Jaeck received an additional $17,913 between July and October 2007 because of an accounting error that recently surfaced as council members reviewed city manager salaries.

Councilman Paul Seto noticed the mistake recently while the city compared Jaeck’s salary to the current City Manager’s, Marcia Raines. After noticing the error, City Attorney Joan Cassman sent Jaeck a letter on Feb. 11 asking for repayment unless he could explain the discrepancy.

Mayor Dan Quigg followed with a phone call on March 2 and a letter on March 11 expressing disappointment in Jaeck for not responding to Cassman’s letter or his voice mail, and advise him that the city would contact CalPERS, the state public employee pension system, to inform them of the salary variance.

“We’re not accusing him of anything, we just want him to explain the discrepancy,” Quigg said. “But if the city is right, we expect him to pay the money back.”

Quigg stressed it was unfair for Jaeck to receive a pension based on an inflated figure.

Jaeck emailed Quigg on March 14, explaining that he was on vacation in Hawaii and did not receive his voice mail until his return, and was displeased with city’s formality in pursuing the matter. 

“I don’t think my treatment by the city (demand letter out of the blue from City Attorney delivered by Fed Ex on a Saturday) is the way friends treat friends,” Jaeck wrote in the email.

Jaeck was city manager from October 2004 to October 2008. His outgoing salary was about $218,600 a year. He is currently securing legal council, but it’s unknown from whom.

On March 23, the city council discussed the matter publicly.

“If an employee sees an increase in his or her paycheck...I would think someone would wonder why there’s more money on that check,” said Councilwoman Marge Colapietro.

But, Seto contested that it’s very common for people to have checks direct deposited into several accounts and likely that Jaeck would not have noticed the increase.

“I’m concerned with the fact that our payroll is so incorrect,” he said. “If this is not accurate, I question whether the rest of the 99 percent of our payroll is incorrect.” 

Seto pointed out that there were several errors in Jaeck’s payroll, and at one point, he was even underpaid. He was also aggravated that Quigg chose to expose the matter publicly, causing unnecessary defamation to Jaeck. 

“We cannot just sweep this under the table,” Quigg said. “I didn’t want to involve attorneys. All I asked [Jaeck] to do was provide sufficient data to prove that our records were not correct. And that wasn’t coming forward.”

At Tuesday night's meeting, members of the public slammed Jaeck as well as the city for its accounting mistake, its communication with Jaeck, and the additional money being spent to pursue the $17,900.

“If the city had underpaid him, it would pay him the extra,” said Lou Sandrini, former director of Public Works. “His actions make him look like the poster boy for those who unfairly complain that government workers are lazy, wasteful, selfish and just feeding into the public trough.”

However, former Mayor Robert Gottschalk, who hired Jaeck, said the council’s first contact with Jaeck should not have been a letter from an attorney and the subsequent warning to reduce his pension, but an inquiry by the finance department.

Jaeck has neither acknowledged nor disputed the allegations. His attorney Paul Smoot could not be reached for comment as of Wednesday afternoon.

The council agreed to write Jaeck another letter asking for clarification on the money. It will revisit the case in a month.