Township manager suspended in Radnor

Commissioners in Radnor suspended the township manager yesterday amid allegations that he had paid himself unauthorized salary bonuses totaling $128,500 during the last eight years.

In 2003, David A. Bashore gave himself his biggest bonus, $18,000, which was about 16 percent of his $113,568 salary that year.

The township charter states that "the board shall fix the compensation of the manager," but Board of Commissioners President Thomas A. Masterson Jr. said Bashore had "failed to seek approval" for the extra pay.

Saying he was shocked by the episode, Masterson said Wednesday he would seek Bashore's resignation. Yesterday, the board suspended him with pay.

In an interview yesterday, Bashore, 52, said he felt betrayed by the accusations. He said the bonus amounts were included in the township budget.

"While I deeply regret that I have become the subject of controversy, I am confident that a fair and impartial review of my actions - when viewed in the context of peer municipalities and other related entities - will reaffirm their appropriateness," he said in a statement.

Bashore began his career in Radnor Township in 1987 as finance director. His base salary for 2008 was $131,641, according to township records.

Bashore's bonuses first became public at a board meeting Monday.

As part of questions asked about Bashore's payments to himself, the board learned that he also had approved bonuses totalling $514,750 for 36 employees since 2004.

Asked then why he had not sought board approval for his bonuses and the others, Bashore said that the township administrative code granted him the authority to award merit-based bonuses to employees and that his employment agreement allowed him to receive similar bonuses.

He said he had written a policy procedure about bonuses in 2001, a year after he took over as manager.

When Masterson asked at Monday's meeting whether the board had approved that policy, Bashore said he wasn't sure.

"There is absolutely no authority for you as township manager to be creating policy documents, signing them, dating them, and putting them in a drawer," Masterson said.

Bashore also said the bonuses were not listed separately in the budget but were rolled in with salary information. Masterson said commissioners would be unlikely to find bonuses buried in the multimillion-dollar annual budget.

"We have been told that it was 'in the budget,' " Masterson said in an interview. "With a $25 million budget, as far as I'm concerned, it was not."

Masterson contacted Delaware County District Attorney G. Michael Green yesterday, and the office will review the matter to determine whether any crimes were committed, Assistant District Attorney Michael Mattson said.

Some Radnor residents expressed frustration that it had taken so long for the board to discover Bashore's bonuses.

"Why is this just coming to light now?" Diane Edbril, 46, a lawyer, asked yesterday. "That's a lot of money to be giving yourself as a bonus."

John Osborne, who has been township treasurer for four years, said he was supposed to cosign all checks that the township manager wrote. But he never saw the bonus checks, he said yesterday, because his signature was automatically processed onto checks.

Osborne said he had fought with Bashore for years to have access to the checks and other documents but was denied.

"I couldn't even see the payroll," he said. "I was completely in the dark."

Bashore denied that he had kept information from Osborne.

"He told me he was not interested in payroll checks," Bashore said.

According to Bashore's written policy, the township manager has the authority to grant up to 5 percent of an employee's salary as a merit bonus at the end of the year.

Several bonuses, including Bashore's, often were greater than 5 percent. In 2008, two employees, listed only as "directors" in township documents available yesterday, received bonuses of $10,500, which was more than 5 percent of their salaries, Osborne said.