LA County quietly paid a $2 million settlement to its CEO in ‘confidential’ deal

L.A. County officials quietly approved a settlement deal that paid $2 million to the county’s CEO almost two months ago, LAist has learned.

CEO Fesia Davenport was issued the check in August to compensate her for damages she claimed — including alleged harm to “reputation, embarrassment and emotional distress,” according to records LAist obtained from the county.

As part of the settlement, she gave up her right to sue the county over claims she had leveled in a series of letters, and over anything else that happened previously between herself and the county. Neither side admitted liability, according to the deal, and Davenport continued in her job as CEO.

The agreement requires Davenport to keep the existence of the settlement, and its contents, “strictly private and confidential,” with limited exceptions.

The settlement also stipulates that Davenport cannot “make, induce or cause any other person or entity to make, negative statements or communications disparaging” the Board of Supervisors and other county officials. There are exceptions, including for required testimony and for disclosing workplace conduct that she believes to be unlawful.

And the deal required the county to instruct all five of Davenport’s bosses on the Board of Supervisors “that they should act in good faith towards [Davenport] so as not to harm her reputation in any way, and should not make, induce or cause any other person or entity to make, negative statements or communications disparaging [her].”

[Click here to read the settlement deal and the signed receipt for the $2 million.]

Davenport and the county supervisors have not returned messages for comment on the settlement.

Davenport began an unscheduled leave of absence last week that is expected to last until early next year, according to her office. She did not give a reason in her announcement to her staff, but later told LAist her leave was for unspecified medical reasons.

The leave is unrelated to the settlement, according to her office.

What did she claim?

So far, it’s unclear what exactly Davenport alleged.

The settlement deal doesn’t detail her allegations, beyond saying they were leveled in letters and included harm to reputation, embarrassment and emotional distress. Additionally, it says she was giving up her right to sue over “the facts and circumstances surrounding the enactment of the ballot proposition known as ‘Measure G.’ ”

That’s the voter-approved measure that reshapes the county’s leadership structure, including transforming the appointed CEO job into an elected one starting with the 2028 election. It was put on the ballot by a majority of Davenport’s bosses on the Board of Supervisors.

LAist requested copies of Davenport’s claim letters from the county last Thursday evening, invoking a state law that requires public disclosure of such records “upon request without delay.”

As of Tuesday morning, County Counsel Dawyn Harrison’s office had not yet released them or said if the letters would be released. Earlier this year, her office disclosed claim letters that led to other settlements with different executives after initially refusing their release.

The $2 million settlement wasn’t reported out publicly

The settlement agreement, which paid out millions in taxpayer dollars in August, is labeled “confidential” and was not reported out publicly by the county. County supervisors approved the tentative deal terms in a July 29 closed session, according to the county. The deal was then finalized about two weeks later, when Davenport and county executives signed it in mid-August, records show.

The county’s usual process is to publicly report out and approve proposed settlements above $100,000, though that didn’t happen in this case. The County Counsel’s Office said state law didn’t require them to publicly report out the settlement because Davenport hadn’t yet agreed to the terms when supervisors approved it on July 29.

But public records attorney David Loy says the county should have told the public about the settlement, given its size and who it was with.

“This is a $2 million agreement with your existing CEO. This is something the public has the right to know about,” said Loy, the legal director for the First Amendment Coalition.

County officials haven’t answered why they didn’t handle the CEO’s settlement through the typical process that publicly reports such deals.

After LAist asked for a copy of the settlement agreement last week, the county quietly updated its official record of the July 29 meeting to add a link to the settlement deal supervisors approved at that meeting. The amended meeting record did not note that it had been updated.

The county CEO oversees the roughly $50 billion county budget, labor relations with over 100,000 county employees and implementing key priorities of the county Board of Supervisors — including poverty alleviation and addressing homelessness.