https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2020/08/13/the-city-manager-in-laredo-texas-received-a-880486-golden-parachute-last-year/#14395c4bb979
In 2019, the city manager in Laredo, Texas, made $880,486. It doubled the earnings of the President of the United States ($400,000) and tripled the earnings of four-star generals in the U.S. military ($268,000).
In fact, in two of the past three years, Laredo employed two of the most highly compensated city managers in the nation.
Between 2017 and 2019, those two city managers collectively made a total of $1.85 million in cash compensation, not including the cost of benefits such as health insurance, the public pension and other perquisites.
Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com discovered this by filing 41,500 Freedom of Information Act requests each of the last three years. We captured and mapped by ZIP Code 23 million public employee salary and pension records annually.
We uncovered an eye-popping amount of money flowing to Laredo’s managers, despite the fact that the border city is home to 261,000 residents with an average income of only $15,127 per year.
In May 2017, the Laredo city council promoted Horacio De Leon, Jr., to interim city manager and the permanent position by August. Earnings for De Leon in 2018 were $314,556. The manager had worked his way up through city government and enjoyed a good reputation locally.
But in a surprising move, the city council parted ways with De Leon in 2019 – only 20 months after hiring him. Our records request showed that De Leon received a $880,486 golden parachute, an all-inclusive payout including severance.