Mayor Karen Bass’ decide to guide the Los Angeles Division of Water and Energy will earn $750,000 a yr — practically twice as a lot as her predecessor.
The Board of Water and Energy Commissioners on Tuesday voted to approve a wage for Bass nominee Janisse Quiñones that’s considerably greater than the $447,082 presently earned by Basic Supervisor Marty Adams.
Quiñones, former senior vice chairman of electrical operations at Pacific Gasoline & Electrical Co., was picked by Bass after a nationwide search. Adams is retiring in June after 4 a long time on the head of the troubled company, the place turnover is especially excessive within the prime ranks.
The Metropolis Council final yr permitted a brand new wage vary — $435,034.80 to $751,011.84 — for the overall managers of the town’s utility, port and airport, which went into impact in December after Adams introduced his retirement.
Prime executives at investor-owned utilities, corresponding to PG&E, usually earn multimillion-dollar salaries, whereas these at public utilities take house a lot much less.
Quiñones’ wage is consistent with prime executives’ salaries on the Omaha Public Energy District in Nebraska and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, in keeping with public information.
Adams acquired a small collection of backdated wage changes this yr, which boosted his wage by about $50,000, in keeping with the division. Earlier than that, he hadn’t gotten a increase since he was employed as normal supervisor in 2019, information present.
Quiñones, in a short look at Tuesday’s DWP board assembly, thanked the commissioners for supporting her nomination.
“The division has so many nice issues going for themselves and lots of new challenges that we have to deal with,” she mentioned, including that “collaboration” with “stakeholders and the neighborhood and others within the trade” can be key.
Along with PG&E, Quiñones labored at San Diego Gasoline & Electrical and at Cobra Acquisitions, the place she helped restore Puerto Rico’s electrical system after Hurricane Maria in 2017, in keeping with Bass’ workplace.
Quiñones can be a commander within the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve who spent 5 years on energetic responsibility, in keeping with a 2021 interview that appeared in a PG&E publication.
“Little or no rattles me,” Quiñones advised the publication, describing how her Coast Guard background helped her put together for working within the vitality trade.
Bass’ workplace, in a press release saying Quiñones’ nomination, mentioned the chief “has the talent set and management expertise to advance the division into 100% clear vitality by 2035.”
The DWP’s subsequent chief is anticipated to play a significant function in reaching the climate-friendly vitality objectives laid out by metropolis leaders and environmentalists.
Scientists on the Nationwide Renewable Power Laboratory say that such objectives are potential to realize however that metropolis officers have large hurdles to beat, corresponding to ensuring they will hold the lights on with out burning pure gasoline, a fossil gasoline, at 4 native energy vegetation.
Members of the Worldwide Brotherhood of Electrical Staff Native 18, which represents DWP employees, employees native gasoline vegetation and have fought to maintain them open.
IBEW Native 18 declined final week to touch upon Quiñones’ nomination.
The union was broadly seen as backing one other candidate, DWP Chief Working Officer Aram Benyamin, for the place.
The DWP board on Tuesday additionally permitted $30,000 in relocation prices and a six-month housing allowance of $45,000 for Quiñones.
Quiñones is anticipated to be confirmed subsequent month by the Metropolis Council.
The DWP’s normal supervisor should reply to unions, the mayor, the Metropolis Council and the utility’s board. That creates stress, and a number of other latest normal managers have lasted just a few years.
Adams, the outgoing normal supervisor, was promoted to the place 5 years in the past — a comparatively lengthy tenure. Adams took over after then-manager David Wright stepped down amid a large federal prison investigation.
Wright later pleaded responsible to bribery and was sentenced to 6 years in jail.
Onetime DWP board President Cynthia McClain-Hill stepped down in January following questions on a personal cellphone name she had with a contractor and a lawsuit by 4 former and present DWP workers alleging that she retaliated towards them. McClain-Hill denies wrongdoing.
