Former Tarrant water board president gave Panther Island boss extra $60K in paid time off
Days before leaving office, and two months after he directed a paid leave exception for the outgoing general manager, the Tarrant Regional Water District’s former board president made a similar arrangement for Panther Island executive J.D. Granger.
The board announced this week that former board president Jack Stevens had directed a paid leave arrangement for outgoing general manager Jim Oliver, which would have amounted to a payout of more than $300,000. But documents obtained by the Star-Telegram show that Stevens also wrote at least one additional arrangement, worth more than $60,000.
According to documents obtained through a public information request, Stevens wrote an internal memo on May 13 — more than a week and a half after he lost his reelection bid, and five days before he left office. In the memo, Stevens directed water district staff to make an exception to the paid leave policy for “the current Development Director of TRWD.”
In an email chain, staff members clarify that the title references Granger. The exception allowed Granger to bank 1,560 hours of paid time off, 520 beyond the maximum outlined in the district’s policy.
At Granger’s hourly rate, that’s more than $60,000 worth of extra time — and the exception would have allowed Granger to be paid “full upon request, in a lump sum, by deposit into the District’s [retirement plan], over time, or otherwise as requested, subject to the requirements of applicable law and the District’s [retirement plan].”
The board revoked all such exceptions at its Tuesday meeting, and board president Leah King told the Star-Telegram on Friday that the district hasn’t paid any money for the exceptions that Stevens wrote. However, district lawyers are still searching for additional exceptions that may not have come to light.
According to water district documents, Granger is paid about $242,000 a year for his role as the executive director of the Panther Island/Central City project. That project, which has a price tag of more than $1 billion, has been ongoing for more than 15 years and has been spearheaded federally by Granger’s mother, U.S. Rep. Kay Granger.
The exception that Stevens wrote for Granger is strikingly similar to an exception he wrote two months earlier, for now-retired general manger Jim Oliver.
That exception, which the board of directors voted unanimously to revoke on Tuesday, added more than 2,000 extra hours of paid time off into Oliver’s account. At Oliver’s hourly rate as general manager, that exception would allow him to cash in on an extra $300,000 in post-retirement compensation. Documents show that Oliver was paid a year salary of about $325,000.
King said on Friday that the district believes that Stevens did not make any additional exceptions beyond the ones given to Oliver and Granger — but that it’s still an open question.
“We cannot be sure that there are not others,” King said. “We don’t believe there are and, from speaking to our head of human resources, there were not any others that came across her desk.”
Lawyers for the Tarrant water district are conducting an “inquiry” into the exception made for Oliver. King clarified Friday that the inquiry will also cover the exception made for Granger “and any other exception that may come to light.”
In her public comments Tuesday, King described the exception to Oliver as “ill-advised” and potentially “unlawful.” However, Oliver’s lawyer told the Star-Telegram that the exception was made following district policy, which includes a clause that paid leave exceptions can be made.
Granger and Stevens did not respond to requests for comment Friday.
Luke Ranker contributed to this report.
This story was originally published July 2, 2021 at 12:50 PM.
