Vernon City Employee Let Go While Officials Probe His Financial Dealings

Donal O'Callaghan was one of several city employees in Vernon, the 5.2 square-mile area south of Downtown L.A. whose public employee's salary was found to be sky-high in the wake of the Bell salary scandal. Now O'Callaghan has been "relieved of his duties while," as officials probe his financial dealings, reports the LA Times."In addition to his annual salary of more than $380,000, Donal O'Callaghan, a city administrator, also received $243,898 in consulting payments from the city," during the first half of 2010. Even more troubling is that the consulting monies came from "Tara Energy Inc., a consulting company headed by O'Callaghan's wife, Kimberly McBride O'Callaghan."

O'Callaghan also had an unusual arrangement for billing "overtime" hours accrued monthly, a practice that is atypical for not only salaried workers, but also for public employees. In 2010, he "billed for 100 to 126 excess hours each month from January through June, earning about $30,000 to $38,000 per month in fees paid to Tara Energy." Records show O'Callaghan was not taking full days off; he even logged 13 hours of work on New Year's Day.