Inside City Hall
Revolving Door: Latest department shuffle marks a year of rapid staff turnover
By The Brew’s count, 17 people have been hired or promoted to head city agencies by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake
Above: Mayor Rawlings-Blake speaks last February as two now-departed cabinet officers listen – Jay Brodie (holding paper) and Ted Atwood (wearing hat).
The appointment of a new director for the Department of General Services, announced Friday by the mayor’s office, is yet another reminder of the turnover of senior leadership in the Stephanie Rawlings-Blake era.
It came just days after it was learned that the mayor’s most senior advisor, Kimberly Washington, will leave as one of the mayor’s four deputy chiefs (formerly known as deputy mayors).
Staff turnover, a constant in city government, has been particularly robust of late, with the number of posts abandoned by their occupants in 2012 far above the historic norm.
Steven D. Sharkey, for example, will replace Theodore Atwood, as director of the Department of General Services, an agency with $72 million a year budget. Atwood, however, will remain on the city payroll.
Steven Sharkey has been named director of General Services, one of many staff reshuffles. (General Services)
Sharkey will become the third GS chief in three years.
Sharkey joined city government in 2005 and previously served as director of special projects for the Baltimore Police Department.
That makes him something of a veteran compared to the crop of newcomers who have landed top city positions.
Over the last year, nearly 20 city agencies have seen their bosses replaced with new directors – in some case, multiple times.
At the Mayor’s Office of Public Safety and Operations, for example, there have been four directors since March, while the office itself has been split in two.
Few Retirements
Retirement has played a minimal role in the exodus of senior administrative staff.
There have been three long-scheduled retirements (Edward Gallagher of Finance, Joseph D. Mazza of Purchasing and Shirley A. Williams of the minority and women’s office) plus two surprise retirements (M.J. “Jay” Brodie, president of the Baltimore Development Corporation, and Frederick H. Bealefeld III as police commissioner).
On the other hand, there’s been only one outright firing.
That happened when Rico J. Singleton, appointed Chief Information Officer by Rawlings-Blake in late 2010, was fingered for financial malfeasance at his former job as a deputy CIO for New York State.
Subsequent e-mails showed that Singleton wanted to retain his city job and, failing that, be an advisor to IT consultants doing city business.
He was replaced by Christopher Tonjes, who was recruited from the District of Columbia library system.
Not Announced
For the most part, senior managers leave city government either without an explanation or to accept jobs that are announced by their new employers.
The mayor’s office calls questions about why top staff depart “personnel matters” and refuses to comment on the circumstances even in broad generalities. Ryan O’Doherty, the mayor’s press spokesman, has characterized the departures as coincidental and said they do no fit a pattern of excessive turnover.
Resignation letters are not typically released by the administration. But Rawlings-Blake sometimes announces a retirement at the weekly Board of Estimates meeting, accompanied by her thanks for their service to the city.
New Department Heads
In an effort at providing more transparency, here is The Brew’s list of supervisors brought in to head city agencies since January 2012:
• Anthony W. Batts (from Oakland, Calif.), replacing Frederick H. Bealefeld III as police commissioner.
• Harry E. Black (from Richmond, Va.), replacing Edward Gallagher as director of Finance. (Gallagher continues as a $55,000 senior advisor to the mayor).
• Ernest W. Burkeen Jr. (from Miami), replacing Gregory Bayor as director of Recreation and Parks.
• Ronnie E. Charles (from Suffolk, Va.), replacing Gladys B. Gaskins as director of Human Services.
Brenda McKenzie replaced Jay Brodie as president of the Baltimore Development Corp. (Fern Shen)
• Thomas B. Corey, replacing Shirley Williams as chief of the Minority and Women’s Business Opportunity Office (MWBOO).
• Olivia Farrow, replacing Thomasina Hiers as director of the Mayor’s Office of Human Services. (Hiers briefly served as acting chief of staff last year.)
• Yolanda Jiggetts, replacing Christopher Thomaskutty as Deputy Chief of Public Safety and Operations.
• Timothy Krus, replacing Joseph Mazza as head of Purchasing.
• Leyla Layman, acting chief of the Mayor’s Office on Criminal Justice, replacing Sheryl Goldstein.
• Robert M. Maloney, replacing Yolanda Jiggetts as Chief of Emergency Management and Public Safety.
• Brenda McKenzie (from Boston), replacing M.J. “Jay” Brodie as president of the BDC.
• Frank Murphy, acting director of the Department of Transportation, replacing Khalil Zaied.
• Sharon R. Pinder, replacing Carla A. Nelson as chief of Mayor’s Office of Minority and Women-owned Business Development.
• Alexander M. Sanchez, replacing Peter O’Malley as chief of staff for Rawlings-Blake. (Sanchez, the former director of the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, brought over his chief of staff, Kym Nelson, to serve with him in the mayor’s office.)
• Steven Sharkey, replacing Ted Atwood as director of General Services.
• Chris Tonjes (from Washington, D.C.), replacing Rico Singleton as Chief Information Officer and head of the Mayor’s Office of Information Technology (MOIT).
• Unfilled replacement for Kimberly C. “Kim” Washington, deputy chief of Government Relations and Community Affairs.
• Khalil Zaied, replacing Jiggetts as deputy chief of Operations.