The Pima County Board of Supervisors will vote Tuesday on whether to renew County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry's contract for another four years.
Huckelberry has been the county's top executive since 1993, but his tenure with the county extends far beyond that.
Huckelberry had worked for the county for 19 years - the last six as an assistant county manager - when he was demoted as part of a sweeping overhaul of the county's top management ordered by the newly elected Republican Board of Supervisors majority in January 1993. Seven top officials were ousted from their positions.
Huckelberry resigned a few months later to work for a private consultant and for the Metro Water District.
But he was back before the end of the year, signed to a six-month interim contract as county administrator at a rate of $110,000 a year.
His new four-year contract will pay him the same $230,000 he now makes.
Although he can be fired at any time by the Board of Supervisors, if he is terminated without cause the contract calls for Huckelberry to be paid six months' salary as severance. It also calls for him to receive whatever cost-of-living raises other county employees get for the next four years.
The last contract, approved in 2004, put his salary at $198,000; it has escalated since then to just under $230,000 with cost-of-living raises - something neither he nor other county employees will be getting this year.
Huckelberry also will receive $22,000 a year in deferred compensation toward his retirement.
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DID YOU KNOW
In 1979, Chuck Huckelberry became Pima County's youngest department head ever when, at age 29, he was put in charge of what was then called the Pima County Highway Department. Huckelberry had worked for the department for five years at the time.
