Falls Church’s Commissioner of the Revenue Tom Clinton assailed City Manager Wyatt Shields in a email letter Tuesday for Shields’ announcement last Friday that employees in the City’s Constitutional offices – those of the Treasurer, Sheriff and Commissioner of the Revenue – will not receive the bonuses voted last April by the F.C. City Council to all other City employees. “I never heard of this intention to exclude us  mentioned in any public budget meeting that I attended this year, and I attended a lot of them,” Clinton wrote, noting that nothing was said about the exclusion from the time the budget passed on April 25 until an email to City employees from the City’s Human Resources chief Richard Parker last Friday.

The bonuses (of $69.23 per paycheck) were added by the City Council to help offset increased pension contribution obligations also passed onto the employees. According to Parker’s letter, “The bonus does not apply to temporary City employees or to employees of the Constitutional Officers as they are not participants n the City’s pension plans so their pension contributions are not increasing.”

However, Clinton noted that an increase in the employee contribution costs of the Virginia Retirement System (which covers Constitutional offices) for all new hires was passed in Richmond this spring.