The $23,383 that former Baltimore County Executive Roger B. Hayden received when he left office was meant to bring his pay for the year to its official level, rather than the lower amount he had pledged to accept, county officials said yesterday.
Mr. Hayden apparently decided to label the payment as compensation for 77 unused vacation days because it was simpler administratively and for his own personal reasons, they said.
"It was a method chosen to allow him to get full salary for last year," Budget Director Fred Homan said after Monday night's County Council meeting.
The former executive had pledged to accept less than his full salary during his four years in office to lend credence to his budget-cutting drives.
Had he stuck to that decision, it would have cost him more than $66,000 in lost salary. By taking the final payout, he cut that loss to $42,600 and gave himself a financial cushion while he looks for another job.
Mr. Hayden has failed to return numerous telephone calls since last week and has not commented on his actions, which have drawn criticism from both Democrats and his fellow Republicans.
Although the county charter does not specifically provide vacation for the executive, Deputy County Attorney Virginia W. Barnhart said the legal issue "is not vacation pay. The issue is total compensation."
She said Mr. Hayden did not ask the county's Office of Law for advice on his plan, but "we caught a rumor and gave unsolicited advice" against taking the money as a matter of policy.
After learning that Mr. Hayden would not be dissuaded, she said, the law office warned him that he could not legally take more money than the total compensation to which he was entitled under the law.
Barnhart and County Attorney Stanley J. Schapiro said that because Mr. Hayden ultimately received less than his official $100,700 salary, the payout was not illegal.
If the county tried to go to court to get the money back, they said, Mr. Hayden could argue that he had taken no more than what he was entitled to.
In a memo to Councilman Douglas B. Riley, Acting County Auditor Mary P. Allen said the final payment, added to the $77,217 that Mr. Hayden had already received as salary, raised his total for the year to $100,600. That's $100 less than his official salary.
Mr. Hayden, a 50-year-old former steel and trucking executive, never took his full salary, declaring instead that he would limit his pay increases to the same percentage raises ordinary county employees received.
The county executive's official pay rose from $73,000 to $85,000 in December 1990, when Mr. Hayden took office.
Over the next three years it rose again to $89,900, $95,100 and eventually to $100,700 in 1994.
But Mr. Hayden kept the executive's original $73,000 salary when he took office and accepted 4 percent pay raises when county workers received them in 1991 and in July of this year.
The County Council set a new, lower pay rate for the post last year, and the new executive, C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger III, will receive $90,000 a year throughout his term.
Friends and colleagues said Mr. Hayden's decision to take the money the way he did reflects both his pride and his bitterness over an election loss that he viewed as a personal rejection by voters after four years of high stress and sacrifice on their behalf.
Depressed, out of work and low on cash, he went into virtual seclusion during his final several weeks in office and denied Mr. Ruppersberger entry to the executive's office suite until the day before he was sworn in Dec. 5.
Typically, his friends said, the former executive chose to take the money quietly and in a way that will ultimately hurt his pension, instead of revealing his problems and asking publicly for the full salary he had once rejected.
When he is eligible for a pension in five years, Mr. Hayden's retirement payments will be based on his last 12 months of salary. By taking the final payout as vacation pay, he reduced that 12-month pay from $100,700 to $77,217, according to county Finance Director James R. Gibson Jr.
As a result, instead of getting $20,140 a year, Mr. Hayden will get only $15,443, he said.
Council Chairman Vincent J. Gardina of Perry Hall said he knows of no activity in the council to try to get the money back or enact legislation banning vacation pay for elected officials.
"We felt that it was more of a one-time type of issue. It was just poor judgment on behalf of Roger Hayden," he said.