I have just received a copy of CPUC Staff Counsel Diana L. Lee’s response to you on September 19, 2003 answering the charges contained in my correspondences to you.

Included with Ms. Lee’s correspondence were Exhibits A, B, and C, which included excerpts from the 9th Federal District Court Judgment by Judge Barbara A. Caulfield on January 5, 1994 (Case No. C-89-4433 BAC), Employment History and Salary History of Maurice F. Crommie with and without June 1, 1992 Promotion from Senior Grade PURA III to Junior Grade PURA V, and a Memorandum and Order No. C-90-1150, signed by Judge Marilyn H. Patel on July 26, 1996, denying plaintiff Crommie’s request to correct the portion of the judgment pertaining to his promotion and retirement pay.

Ms. Lee’s reply to SPB regarding Mr. Crommie’s correspondences comments on two issues:

1.)Mr. Crommie’s retirement salary

2.) Rescinding Dr. Ahern’s appointment as CPUC Executive Director.

There are several significant omissions and inaccuracies in Ms. Lee’s comments:

Mr. Crommie’s retirement salary was not $4857 or $5100 per month as listed in Ms. Lee’s Exhibit B, with retroactive promotion. It was, and still is today, $4626 per month as listed in Ms. Lee’s Exhibit B, without retroactive promotion.

Mr. Peter Arth, CPUC Chief Counsel at the time of Mr. Crommie’s court ordered promotion from PURA III to PURA V, ordered the CPUC Personnel Department to calculate Mr. Crommie’s retirement salary using the standard promotional procedures requiring several annual performance reviews based on merit salary adjustments (MSA) to reach maximum senior pay in grade (see foot-note 3 of Ms. Lee’s response). This method of calculating his retirement pay was inaccurate in Mr. Crommie’s case since his promotion was court ordered and did not follow standard promotional practices. By imposing MSA restrictions on Mr. Crommie’s court ordered promotion, Mr. Arth strove to prevent Mr. Crommie from obtaining the maximum pay rate for the PURA V position, which was $5592 per month at that time (see Attachment B to this letter).

There is also a requirement that retirement salary be based on the maximum salary earned for at least one year preceding retirement.

Both Mr. Arth and Judge Caulfield knew that Mr. Crommie planned to retire soon after his trial. That is why Judge Caulfield specified that Mr Crommie’s promotion be made retroactive (see Ms. Lee’s Exhibit A, page 14, line27) to ensure that Mr. Crommie received the maximum retirement pay associated with his new position of PURA V. Mr. Arth tried to prevent this by ordering the CPUC Personnel Department to use standard promotional practices requiring several annual MSA evaluations to reach maximum senior pay in grade. There is no discussion of standard promotional practices using annual MSA requirements in Judge Caulfield’s decision ordering a double retroactive promotion for Mr. Crommie from PURA III to PURA V. A court ordered promotion is not a standard promotion. There is no requirement for standard annual MSA reviews in a court ordered promotion. Following the trial, Mr. Arth introduced these unauthorized requirements into the calculation of Mr. Crommie’s retirement pay solely to prevent Mr. Crommie from obtaining maximum pay in his new promotion grade of PURA V

There is also a requirement that retirement salary be based on the maximum salary earned for at least one year preceding retirement.

Both Mr. Arth and Judge Caulfield knew that Mr. Crommie planned to retire soon after his trial. That is why Judge Caulfield specified that Mr Crommie’s promotion be made retroactive (see Ms. Lee’s Exhibit A, page 14, line 27) to ensure that Mr. Crommie received the maximum retirement pay associated with his new position of PURA V. Mr. Arth tried to prevent this by ordering the CPUC Personnel Department to use standard promotional practices requiring several annual MSA evaluations to reach maximum senior pay in grade. There is no discussion of standard promotional practices using annual MSA requirements in Judge Caulfield’s decision ordering a double retroactive promotion for Mr. Crommie from PURA III to PURA V. A court ordered promotion is not a standard promotion. There is no requirement for standard annual MSA reviews in a court ordered promotion. Following the trial, Mr. Arth introduced these unauthorized requirements into the calculation of Mr. Crommie’s retirement pay solely to prevent Mr. Crommie from obtaining maximum pay in his new promotion grade of PURA V

Initially, Mr. Crommie selected a retroactive promotion date identical to that arbitrarily selected by his co-plaintiff, Mr. Mangold, April 1, 1989 (see Ms. Lee’s Exhibit A, last page, line 3). Upon consultation with Mr. George Carrazo, Head of the CPUC Personnel Department at that time, Mr. Crommie allowed the CPUC Personnel Department to change his arbitrary retroactive promotion date from April 1, 1989 to June 1, 1992 since Mr Carrazo told him that only one year retroactive promotion was sufficient to ensure maximum retirement pay. When the CPUC Personnel Department was later ordered by Mr. Arth to use the unauthorized standard promotion practices requiring several annual MSA evaluations to calculate Mr. Crommie’s retirement salary, this turned out to be untrue.

Judge Caulfield did not include standard promotional practices merit salary adjustments (MSA) into her orders for Mr.Crommie and Mr. Mangold’s promotions because it would have been illogical and unreasonable to do so. Both Mr. Crommie and his co-plaintiff, Mr. Mangold, had been subjected to CPUC promotional discrimination for several years preceding their trial. It would have been illogical and unreasonable to re-subject them to further CPUC probation and merit salary reviews following their court ordered promotions.

Mr. Crommie and Mr. Mangold’s promotions were not standard promotions of the type described in foot-note 3 of Ms. Lee’s response to SPB. They were court ordered promotions designed to correct the illegal discrimination that had previously occurred in the CPUC application of standard promotional practices to both Mr. Crommie and Mr. Mangold. Following Mr. Crommie’s trial, the CPUC hired a Washington, D.C. personnel consulting firm, at significant expense, to help them revise their standard promotional practices.

The reason that Mr. Mangold, Mr. Crommie’s co-plaintiff, chose a more extended retroactive promotion period than Mr. Crommie, was that he feared a prospective employee lay-off threat. He wanted to extend his time in grade to avoid possible downgrading. As a by-product of his arbitrary choice of extended retroactive time in grade, Mr. Mangold became invulnerable to Mr. Arth’s vindictive order to the CPUC Personnel Department to apply a requirement for several annual MSA evaluations to reach senior maximum pay grade. Mr. Mangold’s arbitrary choice of an extended retroactive promotion time automatically put him beyond the time required for annual MSA reviews to reach maximum senior pay grade. Therefore, Mr. Mangold immediately received the maximum senior pay for a Program and Project Supervisor. This was not the case for me. I remained vulnerable to Mr. Arth’s illegal post-trial manipulation to reduce my retirement pay. I received only the minimum junior retirement pay for my double promotion to PURA V. This was exactly the same pay as the maximum senior pay for PURA III, the position I already held before my trial (see Attachment B).

The background conditions that led to my vulnerability to Mr. Arth’s illegal manipulation of my retirement pay were that I was retiring soon after my trial and thus did not have the incentive that Mr. Mangold did to extend my retroactive promotion beyond the one year that I had been told by the CPUC Personnel Department was sufficient to guarantee me a maximum retirement pay. I was not concerned about the possibility of downgrading. Mr. Arth took advantage of this arbitrary difference in retroactive promotion times between me and Mr. Mangold to order the CPUC Personnel Department to calculate my retirement salary based on standard promotion practices requiring annual MSA reviews to reach maximum senior pay. He knew I would not be at the CPUC long enough to satisfy these illegally imposed requirements and therefore I would receive only the minimum junior pay scale for PURA V , $4626, as my retirement salary (see Attachments A and B). This was his method of obtaining revenge for my exposure of him as an inept Chief Counsel that allowed the CPUC to lose millions of dollars due to his inept mismanagement of a simple discrimination case. Several other discrimination cases against the CPUC were settled out of court for several million dollars following my victory in court.

Judge Caulfield retired soon after my trial. Judge Marilyn Patel dismissed my appeal to prevent Mr. Arth from using annual MSA requirements to calculate my retirement salary (see Ms. Lee’s Exhibit C).

2.) With regard to my plea to Governor Davis and CPUC President Michael Peevey to rescind Dr. William Ahern’s appointment as CPUC Executive Director, I agree with Ms. Lee’s comment that this is a proper action for the Commission.

As can be seen in Ms. Lee’s Exhibit A, page 13, line 24, I have had prior legal confrontation with Dr. Ahern. On March 17, 1993, Dr. Ahern was found guilty in the 9th Federal District Court of employee discrimination against me. I was awarded $88,640 from him and his subordinate supervisor, Catherine Yap, and the CPUC. The case was appealed to the 9th Circuit Federal Appeals Court in San Francisco, where the original verdict was upheld. This case alone may not be sufficient grounds to deny Dr. Ahern’s promotion and appointment to the position of CPUC Executive Director, but there are other charges. Dr. Ahern left the CPUC shortly after my trial.

Two additional factors that motivated my complaints to Governor Davis, the State Auditor, and CPUC President Michael Peevey are the following:
a.) Dr. Ahern’s discriminatory favoritism practices in hiring and promoting his friends to important positions in the CPUC strategic planning staff were undoubtedly a primary factor in the poor regulatory planning by an inexperienced inadequate team to plan for alternative strategies to deal with uncertainties in the coming new deregulation environment. The California Regulatory Debacle is well known throughout the regulatory community in the U.S. The financial fiasco accompanying the California Regulatory Debacle is still continuing. A large part of this fiasco was man-made. Dr. Ahern was one of the key contributors in creating this fiasco. For this reason, his promotion to CPUC Executive Director seems unwarranted.

b.) Dr. Ahern’s appointment as CPUC Executive Director by Michael Peevey and the other commissioners of the CPUC after a ten year absence is subject to question. What other candidates were considered? What investigative procedures were used? What special interests were involved? Dr. Ahern’s special connection to John Bryson, Michael Peevey’s colleague at SCE is well known. There are adequate grounds for suspicion regarding this appointment. It is unlikely that it was reviewed with the care it deserved for such an important appointment to such an important position in such an important state agency whose regulatory decisions affect billions of dollars of state energy costs. It is obvious that the State of California is still paying for prior lack of oversight and will continue to pay for it for some time into the future.

Yours truly,

Maurice F. Crommie
Former CPUC Senior Analyst

Attachments: A and B

Cc: Diana L. Lee
CPUC Staff Counsel