The Pima County supervisors knew that County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry could retire early and stay in his job as a contractor.
And they knew at least one supervisor thought Huckelberry had for too long directed the board, rather than the board directing him.
What they did not foresee was how those two factors could collide.
But that’s what happened last week. It came out that the legendary county administrator had retired quietly on his own, without telling the supervisors who were supposed to oversee him, and simply continued to work as a contractor.
It came out on the eve of an April 5 meeting when supervisors were scheduled to accept Huckelberry’s resignation, forced by a collision in which Huckelberry was struck by a car while riding a bike downtown.
Some supervisors were understandably upset to learn of Huckelberry’s retirement from Dylan Smith of the Tucson Sentinel, who broke the story, and eight months after he had retired. Understandably so.
But a key lesson they ought to take from this is never to let a county administrator run the board again, especially not on matters of the administrator’s own contract.
The board came close to asserting enough control in January 2021, when Huckelberry’s contract came up for renewal. Three of the five board members were newly elected. When Huckelberry asked them to consider a new contract he had drawn up at their first-ever meeting on Jan. 5, they declined.
They delayed considering a new contract to Jan. 19. Then, after a long executive session, they came out with an adjusted plan. Rather than paying him more than his previous $302,000 salary, they agreed to pay him less, $292,000, and to evaluate him — something they did not require before.
Huckelberry accepted those terms, but got a four-year deal and the key clause he took advantage of last July.
Supervisor Rex Scott even highlighted that clause at the Jan. 19 meeting, reading: “If the employee retires as allowed by Arizona state retirement system, he can return to work as a contractor without negation of any terms of this contract.”
Scott, Supervisor Adelita Grijalva and Board Chair Sharon Bronson praised Huckelberry in endorsing the new contract, but the other two expressed reservations.
“I don’t like this contract. I think I made it pretty clear,” Matt Heinz said. “I’d prefer a 12- or 24-month term.” He also wished for a more formal evaluation plan.
Supervisor Steve Christy, the only member of the board to vote no, explained that he thought Huckelberry’s time as administrator had passed, but that the board kept deferring to his wishes.
“The reality should have always been that Mr. Huckleberry as the county administrator works for the Board of Supervisors,” Christy said. “This is not now nor has it been the case for decades.”
When I talked to him Tuesday, Christy, the board’s only Republican, was unhappy with Huckelberry’s handling of his retirement and thought it reflected the board’s deference to him over the years.
“All of the policies, all of the direction, the planning and programs were County Administrator Huckelberry-generated. They did not, for the most part, come from the Board of Supervisors,” Christy said. “This is what probably gave Mr. Huckelberry a certain feeling of license to continue this on in other areas, too, such as his contract.”
Heinz said Monday he regretted how the contract decision had played out.
“I should have pushed harder,” he told me. “I wanted a one-year contract, and I lost that one. I was pretty vocal at the time, saying I wanted a transitional administrator. Rex disagreed with me. Ultimately so did Adelita. And here we are.”
“We should have been doing a national search (for Huckelberry’s successor) starting in July,” he added.
Grijalva was concerned with how the whole episode played out, from the late notice that Huckelberry planned to resign, given on Friday, April 1, to the surprising news of his earlier retirement.
The contract, she noted, “gave him the ability to retire, but nowhere did it say ‘and you don’t tell anyone.’ When there’s any change of status, you let your bosses know.”
She disputes the perception that Huckelberry ran the board at his whim, but she acknowledged that the episode shows the need for more checks in the system.
“Who signed the paperwork that went to HR?” she asked. “Nobody should be able to sign their own paperwork.”
That is apparently what happened, though. County spokesman Mark Evans said Monday that Huckelberry told human resources of his intent to change status.
“His contract said he could do this, so he did it,” Evans said.
On the Bill Buckmaster radio show Tuesday, Scott said he was disappointed not to know of Huckelberry’s retirement when it happened but said it was the board’s responsibility.
“He fully abided by the terms of his contract. We gave him permission, if he chose, to retire and come back on a contractor basis. We did not note in the contract that he needed to tell us in advance. That’s something that’s on the board.”
“I wish he had told us; he wasn’t obliged to,” Scott went on. “Mr. Huckleberry and his family are already dealing with enough. I just think that what we need to be doing right now is reflecting the lessons we learned about how we should have conducted things back in January, and not focus on what we wish Chuck had done.”
There likely never again will be a county administrator as knowledgeable, intelligent and crafty as Huckelberry. But that’s the spirit of accountability that the board should embrace in the post-Huckelberry era. Too bad it took this episode to drive home the point.
