Kings County Water Agency Hires New Manager, More Changes Ahead

The Kings County Water District Board approved hiring a new general manager a month after firing its longtime manager of 12 years.

The district hired Madalyn Vieira with an annual salary of $155,000 at its May 21 special board meeting. Vieira is expected to start on Wednesday, May 27.

“She was extremely impressive with her interviews. She has a ton of experience with the Tule Basin and everything that’s going on there and running boards and communication and stakeholder engagement, policy,” Board Member David Stanfield said during the meeting.

“She’ll have some learning to do on the water system and how it runs, but we have complete confidence in her and are excited for the future with her,” he added.

Vieira’s Previous Experience

Vieira founded Valley Water Strategies, a consulting firm that offers groundwater management support just this month, according to her LinkedIn.

Before that, she was a water policy manager at 4Creeks, a Visalia-based construction and engineering firm, for nearly two years then a legal operations director for 11 months, according to her LinkedIn.

“We feel like (Vieira) has a lot of passion for communication and I think that that’s been lacking here and I think the public deserves to know what’s going on,” board member Chip Mello said.

Board Fired Dennis Mills, Will Make More Changes

The district fired its general manager Dennis Mills at a special closed session April 22. Mills’ termination was effective May 15. The district paid Mills a severance of about $234,835, including about 200 hours of unused vacation, according to an estimate presented by the district’s legal counsel, Ray Carlson.

Carlson said Mills had alleged he had more than  360 hours of accrued vacation leave.

“That’s insane. And then you should get paid for that is even more insane,” Carlson told the board.

In order to avoid a similar situation in the future, the board approved amending its paid sick and vacation leave policy to allot 40 hours of sick leave and up to 96 hours of vacation leave annually. Vacation leave will be capped at 200 hours.

Going forward, the board will also require the manager to include a report of all employees’ accrued sick and vacation time and days taken off the previous month.

About the Reporter

Monserrat Solis covers Kings County water issues for SJV Water through the California Local News Fellowship Initiative.

About SJV Water

SJV Water is an independent, nonprofit news site covering water in the San Joaquin Valley, www.sjvwater.org. Email us at sjvwater@sjvwater.org

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