Fired MEA executives file suit

PALMER — Two men fired from the Matanuska Electric Association have filed suit saying they weren’t paid severance pay as their contracts required.

Bruce Scott and Tuckerman Babcock were fired in April. Scott was the co-op’s head of information technology and Babcock one of its assistant general managers. Babcock also headed up MEA’s human resources department.

The firings came during a meeting many consider to be the first steps in the MEA board of directors’ attempt to fire General Manager Wayne Carmony. At the same meeting, the board’s attorney, Robin Brena, was directed to start negotiating with Carmony regarding the general manager’s termination.

Carmony was directed at the April 13 meeting to suspend both Scott and Babcock for two weeks with pay and terminate them effective April 29. The board has remained mum about their exact reasons for firing the two executives, but the order they give was they be fired “without cause.”

What seems at issue in the suit is whether the board or Carmony fired Babcock and Scott.

The complaint, which attorney Susan Orlansky filed Thursday on behalf of the two former executives, says the contracts both executives signed state that Carmony could, at his own discretion, fire both men.

But if Carmony is no longer general manager and some other executive or body decides to fire Babcock and Scott, the two men could only be fired with cause. If they were fired without cause, both were entitled to severance pay equal, Orlansky writes, to two years’ worth of salary and benefits.

Orlansky seems to be arguing that, since Carmony wasn’t acting on his own discretion when he signed their termination papers, it was the board who fired Babcock and Scott and therefore the two men are entitled to severance.

The exact dollar amount the severance pay totals out to is unclear in the complaint, which only says that the total exceeds $100,000. The complaint references contracts for the two executives that were not a part of the court file, at least not the file as made available to the public.

Statistics MEA released in May 2008 set the yearly salary of the utility’s information technology director at $127,363. The utility has two assistant general managers, one makes $126,310, the other makes $140,061. The statistics did not make clear which salary was Babcock’s.

“On April 29, 2009, Mr. Scott and Mr. Babcock were each provided what MEA described as a final pay check. The pay covered the two weeks they were suspended with pay, and did not include any severance pay,” Orlansky wrote.

Scott and Babcock both wrote to the board saying the felt they deserved severance, Orlansky wrote, but on May 14, the board rejected their claims.

By ordering Carmony to fire the two executives rather than do it themselves, Orlansky wrote, the board engaged in, “a transparent attempt to avoid the terms of the severance pay provisions of the Employment Agreements.”

Neither MEA, the board, nor its attorneys had filed a response to the claim as of Monday morning. MEA spokeswoman Lorali Carter said it would be unlikely that the co-op would have anything to say about the suit.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.