Throughout his four-year term as Baltimore County executive, Roger Hayden accepted thousands less in salary than county law specified. He did so to send a signal to public employees and residents that it was time for the county to tighten its belt. He collected about $66,000 less than he was entitled to, not to mention the negative impact it had on his pension.
Yet in a stunning reversal of that unselfish act -- which he never milked for political gain -- Mr. Hayden put in for 77 unused "vacation" days when he left office this month. He took a lump-sum payout of $23,383.
Baltimore County's chief executive doesn't get a set vacation allotment; neither does any other elected official in Maryland. So how did Mr. Hayden arrive at 77 days? No one has an answer. County Attorney Stanley J. Schapiro -- a Hayden appointee -- says of Mr. Hayden's payment: "There's no regulation that says you can't get it." By that perverse logic, the executive is also entitled to everything that isn't tied down in his office. But that wouldn't make it right.
Mr. Hayden's money grab is ironic: The former school board president handily won office as a fiscal conservative in 1990 largely because voters were fed up with the perception of an imperial, extravagant county government in Towson.
The news is also embarrassing coming on the heels of Mr. Hayden's Nixonian bitterness following his loss. He lashed out at reporters on Election Night, broke tradition by failing to show at -- his successor's inauguration weeks later and has been a virtual recluse since he lost.
Most important, the vacation payout is wrong. The money should be returned. It does not belong to Mr. Hayden. It belongs to the taxpayers.
If Mr. Hayden thinks he was undercut by the media and betrayed by the public he dutifully served, he's mistaken. The fact is Mr. Hayden got an easy ride. When he was out much of last spring and summer for brain surgery, no one made an issue of his recuperation. Nor was his health twisted into a campaign issue. His alleged personal problems with women were never more than faint background noise during his term. And, unlike the animosity heaped upon his predecessor, Dennis F. Rasmussen, for his blow-dried hairdo and monogrammed shirts, Mr. Hayden's personal quirks were never public concerns.
Did Mr. Hayden take the vacation money out of spite? Retribution? We may never know. But there's no doubt who is hurt most by this act -- Roger Hayden himself.
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