Roberts: Cry no tears for Valley Metro's $tephen Banta
Laurie Roberts, The Republic | azcentral.com 5:35 p.m. MST December 7, 2015
The boards that (theoretically) oversee Valley Metro on Monday agreed to accept the resignation of their free spending CEO.
They rejected last week’s plan to offer Stephen Banta a separation agreement (read: another month’s worth of pay). Instead, they’re giving him the bare minimum allowed.
And when I say bare minimum, I mean a JACKPOT.
Cry no tears for the $265,000-a-year soon-to-be former chief executive officer of Valley Metro.
On Jan. 4, Banta will leave so-called public service with a long and disconcerting string of prize packages already paid for by youknowwho.
This is a guy who already got $15,000 to move here from Portland in 2010. Plus a year’s worth of temporary housing assistance, up to $42,000.
This is a guy who charged us another $15,347 for 44 round-trip flights to Portland – most of them for his wife, Ellen – in the ensuing two years. Plus another $3,451 to rent car in Portland – 13 times.
This is a guy who got $14,000 for four months of “housing transition allowance” in 2012 – fully two years after he already had moved here. Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, then chairman of Valley Metro Rail, signed off on that nugget. I put in a call to ask Stanton why Banta needed another four months of taxpayer-supplied housing assistance two years after he moved to the Valley. Alas, Stanton didn’t get back to me.
I can certainly understand why.
On his way out the door, Banta will collect a jaw dropping $265,000 annuity – one he is entitled to thanks to the contracts signed by those shrewd negotiators, former Phoenix Councilman Tom Simplot (in 2010) and Stanton (in 2012) and agreed to by the Valley Metro boards.
The same boards that in August gave Banta a $25,000 bonus.
All this, in addition to his travel junkets, his luxurious hotel stays and his fancy dinners with guests – both real and imagined.
As a result of Republic reporter Craig Harris’ embarrassing stories on this guy’s tendencies to burn though money (ours, of course), the two boards that oversee Valley Metro on Monday accepted his Nov. 24 resignation. The altnerative was to fire him and have to pay him another year's worth of salary (another clause of his contract).
Banta will stay on the payroll until Jan. 4, when his paid time off is exhausted. But he'll still walk away smiling, with more than a quarter of million dollars in that taxpayer-supplied annuity..
And we are left to wonder… where oh where is the oversight?
We have two boards that are supposed to be overseeing this agency, which spends $300 million operating the Valley’s public transportation system and billions more expanding light rail.
We have annual audits that cost us tens of thousands of dollars and always give the joint a clean bill of financial health.
We have a board that rotates among city officials every year and looks to have more input into its catered lunch menus than into its actual operation. On Monday, board members again called for a full audit of the agency.
Which presumably will look different from all the other audits of the agency – the ones that assured us there was nothing to see here.
Except, of course, for the inconvenient and highly embarrassing fact that there is. With more to come, I'd guess.
“It seems to me that every day there is something new that is discovered,” Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo remarked to his fellow board members.
He's right.
But how pathetic that the one doing all the discovering is The Republic’s Craig Harris.
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A joint meeting of the Valley Metro Regional Public Transportation Authority and Valley Metro Rail voted to accept Stephen Banta's resignation.
Voting to accept Banta's resignation without a separation agreement:
Avondale Councilman Jim McDonaldVoting no:
Chandler Vice Mayor Kevin Hartke
Gilbert Councilwoman Jenn Daniels
Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo
Peoria Vice Mayor Jon Edwards
Phoenix Councilwoman Thelda Williams
Scottsdale Councilwoman Suzanne Klapp
Surprise Councilman Skip Hall
Tempe Mayor Mark Mitchell
Tolleson Councilwoman Kathie Farr
Wickenburg Councilman Everett Sickles
Buckeye Vice Mayor Eric Orsborn
Glendale Councilwoman Lauren Tolmachoff
Goodyear Councilwoman Sharolyn Hohman