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Settling Dodge lawsuit costs county $350,000

To settle Rick Dodge's lawsuit over his firing, Pinellas County in effect rehires him for 14 months to make him eligible for state retirement benefits.

By WILL VAN SANT
Published March 16, 2006

CLEARWATER - To get rid of Rick Dodge, Pinellas County officials who despised him held their noses and took him back, at least on paper.

The county on Wednesday released a settlement approved seven weeks ago with the former assistant county administrator, who helped bring Major League Baseball to Tampa Bay. Despite a judge's order, county leaders refused to release the document earlier, saying details were unresolved. They used the extra time to get Dodge into the state retirement program, one of his chief demands.

Pinellas County administrator Steve Spratt fired Dodge in August 2002, citing a maverick style. Dodge maintains he was fired for refusing to keep quiet about fraud in a welfare-to-work program. He filed a whistle-blower lawsuit in 2003.

When he was forced out, Dodge was 14 months from being eligible for state retirement benefits. On Tuesday, Spratt signed a document that, in essence, gave Dodge his job back through October 2003.

He will get $155,000 in back pay and the county will put about $15,000 into the state retirement system on Dodge's behalf. That means the 61-year-old Dodge could get as much as $464,000 from the system in coming decades.

Dodge would have gotten nothing if the county had refused to reinstate him.

His lawyers will get about $180,000, meaning the county will have paid $350,000 to settle with Dodge.

"I'm happy to have this part of the process resolved for myself and my family," Dodge said. "But I am deeply saddened by the failures of people in positions of public trust."

In July, county commissioners met with their legal counsel. A judge had recently refused to dismiss Dodge's case. Then an arbitrator found that Dodge had been fired for speaking out about gross mismanagement in the work program. Also, Dodge's attorneys had threatened to sue county officials for allegedly giving information to the press that misrepresented their client's dealings with a private company.

Commissioners were told they had spent $600,000 defending the case. A trial could drag on for two years, costing an additional $350,000 with no guarantee of victory. Commissioners agreed to seek a settlement and capped it at $350,000.

"We know he's wrong and he should have been fired years ago," said Commissioner Susan Latvala. "I've never been so sick over a decision."

Dodge's lawsuit had its roots in a $15-million-a-year contract Pinellas entered into in 1999 with Lockheed Martin IMS, a subsidiary of the defense industry behemoth. The company was hired to help low-income people with job training and placement. Dodge says they pocketed public money and provided little or no services to those in need. And when he tried to expose the corruption, he says, Spratt fired him. "This is about a massive failure of public leadership," Dodge said.

In September 2004, federal prosecutors demanded two years' worth of documents from Pinellas County dealing with the Lockheed Martin contract. Federal officials will not confirm whether an investigation continues.

County leaders, including Spratt, say they could find no evidence of fraud when they looked into Lockheed's performance. And, Spratt says, when he urged Dodge in 2002 to seek an audit of the company, the administrator was unresponsive.

Spratt said Dodge was no persecuted champion of truth; rather, he misled co-workers and was often absent from work.

"The file and the record is extensive as to Mr. Dodge's performance problems," Spratt said. "I'm perfectly comfortable with the decisions that I made."

Times researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report.

[Last modified March 16, 2006, 01:59:09]