The dispute over a contract renewal for the head of an influential Cleveland-area transportation agency appears to be resolved.
Next week, the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency board will vote on a new contract for CEO Grace Gallucci – with some caveats. Those caveats were added in a Friday executive committee meeting by Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne and Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb.
If approved by the full board, NOACA will hire an outside firm to review Gallucci’s compensation before her new three-year contract goes into effect in July. The proposed amended contract would also include new performance review measures. The original contract renewal would have raised her base pay to $291,679.
The board will also vote on hiring a consultant to examine NOACA’s operations. At Friday’s meeting, Bibb said the consultant would look into NOACA’s human resources, communications, capacity building and advocacy work.
NOACA may not be a household name, but it holds sway over $50 million in annual state and federal money for roads, bridges and other projects. The mayor, county executive and numerous other officials from both parties across the region sit on its board.
Last year, Ronayne pushed the board to delay a vote on renewing Gallucci’s contract. He argued the board should have subjected its CEO to a more rigorous performance evaluation. The Democratic county executive and NOACA’s board president, Republican Lake County Commissioner John Hamercheck, debated the process in an exchange of emails.
On Friday, the executive committee – which includes Bibb, Ronayne and Hamercheck – met behind closed doors before agreeing to recommend the contract renewal. Afterward, Ronayne said he was content with the result.
“I’m satisfied that we progressed as an organization that understood the values of good governance,” he told Signal Cleveland.
Last year, Cleveland officials did not side with Ronayne in his bid to delay the contract. But Bibb and the county executive said they were on the same page Friday. The mayor joined Ronayne in proposing the compensation review and study of NOACA’s operations.
So far, Cleveland and NOACA have been unsuccessful in convincing the U.S. Department of Transportation to spend grant dollars overhauling East 66th Street in the Hough neighborhood.
But Bibb said he believed NOACA had still done a good job helping Cleveland bring home federal money. The agency will be a key partner in other city transportation work, such as the effort to expand Cleveland’s Amtrak offerings, he said. The mayor argued the organizational review of NOACA will help the agency do its job.
“It’s important that Grace has the tools she needs, the people she needs and is building the right culture internally to move the organization forward in a successful and sustained way,” Bibb said.
Gallucci didn’t comment on the contract renewal at Friday’s meeting. But during a discussion of her contract last year at a meeting last year, she said “exceptional organizational performance” had been her goal since her first day on the job in 2012.
