After a marathon of over sixteen hours, the Bonusgate hearings finally ended at 12:45 AM this morning with all four firings being upheld. No one was surprised at the outcome. Several new tidbits did come out though:

• The commission did not find enough evidence to support that Christopher Mays and Theresa Orta were involved in a conspiracy, but that leaves me confused. If they weren’t part of a conspiricy to to receive the raises, then they were recieving raises/bonuses that they thought to be legitimate. Anything else would be a conspiricy. So remind me, if they were receiving what they thought was legitimate pay, what were they fired for again?
• During the meeting on the bonuses Tuesday night, Alvarado said that Rosie Hernandez was ordered to give yearly pay raises to the staff in her District I office. Instead, Hernandez reportedly gave the total yearly raises on every bi-weekly pay check. (Note: I originally thought the article meant % of raise; apparently they mean $$$ amount.) But if the raises went through as they did originally, this means that Alvarado did delegate that authority to Hernandez, because if not, Alvarado should have caught it when presented the papers to sign.
• A memo was entered into evidence in which Alvarado delegated authority in financial matters to Rosie Hernandez. Like I said. . . .
• The FBI sent observers to the hearing.
• An attorney for one of the employees said their client would testify that the bonuses were paid in part as compensation for campaign work done on city time. I don’t see where that testimony was given, but maybe the hearing was cut short?
• What’s this all about? “Watkins’ attorney pushed to have a gift basket as evidence but said Watkins may need it again if there are criminal charges.” I missed something. . .

Update: VERY curious…. why is the MSNBC article attributed to KHOU much more detailed than the one on the KHOU site itself?

The finding of the hearing:

“However with respect to Ms. Orta and Mr. Mays, we don’t think that there was — or we believe that the employees presented sufficient evidence that there was not a conspiracy on their part, so we did not sustain all of the charges against Ms. Orta and Mr. Mays.”

Despite Orta and Mays being cleared on some of the charges, all the employees still lost their jobs.

Note again how the city operates: as I’ve said before, the employees have not actually been fired:

Mays said nothing as he left the hearing, while Orta’s attorney, Daniel Corrigan, spoke for her.

“They said indefinite suspension, but I think we proved our case beyond a reasonable doubt. Her signature only appears on one date out of all the dates and nothing else,” Corrigan said.

An employee on indefinate suspension receives no pay, accrues no senority, has no benefits, and is essentially not an employee. Except that the city rules still apply to you. The whole point is to make the employee take the final step of quitting. (Although commenter ngharrah disagrees, I’m not certain if we’re arguing semantics or facts yet.)

Update 2: And the Chronicle’s article pretty much gets to the point (Matt’s like that, I’ve noticed):

“I’ve never done any type of bonus or incentive pay,” she told the commission, referring both to the pro tem office and to her District I council office.

Hernandez disputed that, saying the councilwoman approved “each and every one” of the payments either by initialling memos or instructing Hernandez to do so. . . . But attorneys for the employees elicited revelations that Alvarado had been notified that pro tem employees were getting large bonuses, and that her council office employees received significant pay increases.

Alvarado denied ever reading the notification, saying she was copied an e-mail that she apparently never read. In it, finance officials said the pro tem employees received $18,000 in bonuses in fiscal 2005.

She also said the fact that her employees received higher salaries for a few months in early 2005 was a mistake by Hernandez. She said the extra money was a misunderstanding that was corrected after a few months, and that she stayed within her annual budget by reducing the same employees’ pay.

However, that last bit misses what KHOU reports: Alvarado did authorize those raises, just not as much as the employees recieved.

Hernandez said the pro tem employees earned the extra pay because they were overworked and had to do extra tasks, including projects for Alvarado’s re-election campaign.

Asked why she didn’t report the campaign work happening on city time, which Alvarado has denied, Hernandez said she was afraid that Mayor Bill White, who met weekly with Alvarado, wouldn’t believe her.

“I didn’t trust going to any city official, because they all would stick together, as they are doing now.”

Pretty much the truth, is it not?

The city’s chief administrative officer, Anthony Hall, earlier told the commission the bonuses clearly were improper. He said two employees misused their authority to sign documents on Alvarado’s behalf.

“It’s the most egregious example I’ve seen in my 25 years in government,” Hall said.

Which, in my book, is another way of saying, “What the hell did they have that much authority for anyway?” Not that such words would ever occur to anyone in our city government.