A Problem With City Management?

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Altered surveys led to Austin Convention Center firing, city officials say

Financial issues, criminal inquiry also dogging department.

By Kate Alexander
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, April 04, 2007

The firing of the director of the Austin Convention Center Department, Robert Hodge, stemmed from his manipulation of customer service surveys to improve the convention center's performance results, according to two senior city officials.

An annual bonus for Hodge and more than 200 other department employees was contingent on maintaining a high customer service rating, which was derived from those surveys.

City Manager Toby Futrell terminated Hodge on Sunday for violating an unspecified city policy. She declined to elaborate on the violation because it related to a personnel issue. She said in a statement that the firing was separate from an ongoing investigation of the department by the Travis County district attorney.

But two city officials, who asked not to be named because of the ongoing investigation, said the offense that led to the firing involved changing responses on surveys received from event planners.

City spokesman Gene Acuna said he would not comment on the issue beyond the statement that was issued by Futrell on Monday.

It is not clear whether the manipulated ratings qualified the department for the bonus, which totaled almost $416,000 in 2006 and was distributed among employees based on salary and performance evaluation. The Convention Center Department is the only city department with that particular goal-based bonus structure.

Hodge received a bonus of almost $9,600 for 2006 in addition to his salary of nearly $152,700. The average payout for all eligible employees was $1,990.

Hodge did not return messages left at his mobile or home phone numbers Tuesday but said recently that he knew of no wrongdoing in the department.

Although Futrell said Monday that the city policy violation was separate from the district attorney's inquiry, the city's response to an open records request filed by the Austin American-Statesman on March 16 indicates that the customer surveys are part of a criminal investigation by the Austin Police Department and the district attorney's office.

In a letter to the Texas attorney general dated Friday, the City of Austin requested that it be allowed to withhold the surveys, based on an open records exemption for information that is held by law enforcement.

The firing of a department director is rare in the City of Austin; the last time it happened was 1990.

The problems at the Convention Center Department appear to be deeper than reports of altered surveys.

Last week, the city's outside auditor, KPMG LLP, notified Austin officials that it could not complete its work on the city's annual financial report until the investigation of the convention center is completed.

Michael Granof, an accounting professor at the University of Texas McCombs School of Business, said the outside auditor's actions signaled a significant problem.

"It clearly indicates that there are major financial concerns, that there is a strong possibility that the financial information provided by the convention center cannot be relied upon," Granof said.

Council Member Mike Martinez said the city has been grappling for some time with serious management problems throughout the organization, citing issues with the Department of Small and Minority Business Resources, the water utility and the Emergency Medical Services department.

On Thursday the City Council is scheduled to review Futrell's annual performance and examine how well the city is run.

"I hope at some point we stop finding problems and start fixing them," Martinez said.