DALLAS — Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, in a new memo Thursday, asked the city council’s ad hoc committee on administrative affairs to convene to consider a possible resolution to deny any severance payment to former City Manager T.C. Broadnax.
Johnson’s request comes a bit over a week after his previous memo asking the city attorney’s office to determine whether or not Broadnax should receive severance pay and questioned whether Broadnax’s resignation counted as “involuntary separation.”
As WFAA previously reported, that language in Broadnax’s contract allowed for him to receive a lump sum payment equal to his $423,247 salary upon the end of his employment with the city.
Johnson in the May 14 memo raised concerns that Broadnax was named a lone finalist for the city manager job in Austin, about two weeks after he resigned as city manager in Dallas, that city leaders in Austin approved hiring Broadnax for the city manager job there April 4, and that Broadnax’s resignation may have occurred the way it did to ensure Broadnax would leave Dallas with severance pay.
Johnson cited WFAA reporting in that memo that Broadnax was said to have initially approached councilman Jaime Resendez about his potential departure and to have asked him to identify a collective of eight city council members who would ask him to resign, triggering a severance clause in Broadnax’s contract.
Broadnax declined to address the question of his severance from Dallas in his first interview as Austin’s city manager with our sister station KVUE this week.