Saratoga News

Deborah Larson

Administrative services director resigned after email was printed

Deborah Larson took shots at Arizona officials

Perlin praises new hire

By Sarah Lombardo

Saratoga gained a seasoned professional as its new interim administrative services director after a newspaper published her email messages criticizing other employees of Maricopa County, Ariz., where she worked as the county's chief financial officer until she quit in February. Deborah Larson, who has a reputation for working wonders with financially troubled local governments, proved blunt in the comments that generated a controversy preceding her resignation. But it was a blip in the new Saratoga administrator's career, and newly appointed City Manager Larry Perlin said it would not have made a difference in Larson's hiring.

"I think that from her background and the people I have spoken with who worked with her, I've gotten a very comfortable feeling about it," Perlin said of his decision to hire Larson. Perlin said he was not aware of the email controversy in Maricopa County, but knew that she had done wonders with the county during her tenure and felt confident that she would do a good job helping the city recover from a reorganization that eliminated almost seven positions from the city's roster.

"Because of my respect for you and my desire to save the county needless embarrassment, I am resigning," Larson wrote in a letter to the Maricopa County's chief administrator David Smith in early February.

Stories in the Arizona Republic, a newspaper out of Phoenix, reported that Larson was said to have resigned on her own, but also stated that the move came as the Maricopa County Attorney's office reviewed her email messages that were under demand as public records. The Republic had broken a story in January, when messages that the newspaper had requested last November--but not yet received--under the Public Records Act were leaked to a reporter by a former employee for the county. In the messages, Larson is reported to have called the Surprise, Ariz., city manager a "putrid individual;" characterized Smith as ineffectual by writing, "If he actually provides direction--a rare occurrence;" and discussed plans to demote a manager, saying that she was thinking of "burying him so deep in the organization, he'll never be heard from again," or "putting him on a tight leash."

Larson told the Republic that she felt she was being targeted by an unhappy employee.

County officials said at the time that the event was unfortunate because it detracted from all the good things Larson had done for the county.

"I don't really have any comment about the emails," Smith said. "The fact is that [Larson] came into the county when it was in financial turmoil. ... Within 18 months, we had a $30 million surplus. ... That getting-out-of-trouble phase was essential, and Deborah was definitely an instrumental part of that."

During her four years in Maricopa, Larson brought it back from the brink of financial disaster. Hired in November 1993, Larson was credited with making it possible for the city to be back in the black only 18 months later. And Maricopa County was not the only municipality to benefit from Larson's number skills:Saratoga's neighbor, San Jose, recruited Larson in June 1985 to be the chief of treasury and help the city recover from its notorious investment loss, a scandal which had caused several high-level managers to leave the city. Larson worked as the treasurer and senior accountant in Ann Arbor, Mich., the place the Chicago-born Larson calls her hometown because of the length of time her family stayed there. Larson also worked as the management services director for Federal Way, Wash.; the reorganization consultant for Seattle, Wash.; and the director of finance in San Jose.

In an interview with the Saratoga News, Larson said that she resigned her job in Arizona not because of the controversy, but simply because her purpose with the county was over.

"The county had recovered and we had received an upgrade in our credit rating, and in terms of my own job profile, I was a change agent. And when you are a change agent, you don't stay beyond the job being finished," she said. "The organization did not need me anymore."

Said Larson of the timing of the email stories and her resignation: "[The controversy] was sort of an additional irritant," she said. "It was not a major factor. But it was a signal to me that the profile was finished."

Larson declined to comment about the emails themselves. "I hate to dignify it with much comment," she said. "The less said about it, the better."

After her departure from Arizona, Larson was an international finance consultant in Bosnia-Herzegovina, helping local governments develop sound financial systems. Her husband Gary's appointment as the new city manager for the city of Milpitas brought Larson back to the Bay Area just when Saratoga was in the market for a new director after Thomas Fil handed in his resignation three weeks ago.

Perlin said that although he didn't know about any email incident in Maricopa, he understood that bad press for a top-level official for a county as large as Maricopa, which is the sixth-largest county in the country, didn't mean Larson was not the right choice for the job in Saratoga.

"When you're brought into a situation where there's turmoil and you have to make tough decisions, inevitably you are going to step on some toes and make decisions that will result in some people not being satisfied," he said. Perlin said the situation, from what little he knew, did not seem to be something that would have changed his mind about Larson even if had known about it.

He's not the only one.

Employees at Saratoga City Hall--left somewhat shell-shocked by the loss of the utility-users tax last year, the subsequent reorganization and the rash of resignations that accompanied it--said that Larson has, in the short time she has been with the city, made a very good impression on them as a good manager. One employee said that it seemed she was going to be a very positive force for Administrative Services Department and the city.

Pete Gonda, an administrative analyst in the department, said he also knew nothing of the email controversy in Maricopa, but it didn't affect his opinion of Larson based on what he learned in working with her so far.

"I tend to be a person who looks at both sides of the story," he said. "You can't believe everything you hear."

A contract for Larson was approved by the City Council at its Nov. 5 meeting. The agreement calls for Larson to be paid $47 an hour plus reimbursement for any direct expenses incurred on the job.

Stories in the Arizona Republic, a newspaper in Phoenix, reported that Larson was said to have resigned on her own, but also stated that the move came as the Maricopa County Attorney's office reviewed her email messages that were requested as public records. The Republic had broken a story in January, when messages that the newspaper had requested last November--but not yet received--under the Public Records Act were leaked to a reporter by a former employee for the county. In the messages, Larson is reported to have called the Surprise, Ariz., city manager a "putrid individual"; characterized County Administrator Smith as ineffectual by writing, "if he actually provides direction--a rare occurrence"; and discussed plans to demote a manager, saying that she was thinking of "burying him so deep in the organization, he'll never be heard from again," or "putting him on a tight leash."

Larson told the Republic that she felt she was being targeted by an unhappy employee.

County officials said at the time that the event was unfortunate because it detracted from all the good things Larson had done for the county.

During her four years in Maricopa, Larson brought it back from the brink of financial disaster. Hired in November 1993, Larson was credited with making it possible for the city to be back in the black only 18 months later. And Maricopa County was not the only municipality to benefit from Larson's number skills: Saratoga's neighbor San Jose recruited Larson in June 1985 to be the chief of treasury and help the city recover from its notorious investment loss, a scandal which had caused several high-level managers to leave the city. Larson worked as the treasurer and senior accountant in Ann Arbor, Mich., the place the Chicago-born Larson calls her hometown because of the length of time her family stayed there. Larson also worked as the management services director for Federal Way, Wash.; as a reorganization consultant for Seattle, Wash.; and as the director of finance in San Jose.

In an interview with the Saratoga News, Larson said that she resigned her job in Arizona not because of the controversy, but simply because her purpose with the county was over.

Larson declined to comment on the emails themselves. "I hate to dignify it with much comment," she said. "The less said about it, the better."

After her departure from Arizona, Larson was an international finance consultant in Bosnia-Herzegovina, helping local governments develop sound financial systems. Her husband Greg's appointment as the new city manager of Milpitas brought Larson back to the Bay Area just when Saratoga was in the market for a director after Thomas Fil handed in his resignation three weeks ago.

Perlin said that although he didn't know about any email incident in Maricopa, he understood that bad press on a top-level official for a county as large as Maricopa, which is the sixth-largest county in the country, didn't mean Larson was not the right choice for the job in Saratoga.

He's not the only one.

"I tend to be a person who looks at both sides of the story," he said. "You can't believe everything you hear."

A contract for Larson was approved by the City Council at its Nov. 5 meeting. The agreement calls for Larson to be paid $47 an hour plus reimbursement for any direct expenses incurred on the job.

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