Sound Transit CEO Rogoff likely up for $16K bonus

Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff could likely be in line for a $16,000 performance bonus for 2018. That’s in addition to an 11 percent raise he received when he inked a new contract with the city in November.

RELATED: Legislator calls for Sound Transit to reject Rogoff pay raise

The Seattle Times reported Friday that Rogoff’s bonus was approved unanimously by the Sound Transit executive committee — that includes Mayor Jenny Durkan and King County Executive Dow Constantine — without public debate.

Vice-chair of the Sound Transit board and Redmond Mayor John Marchione cited the 40 percent employee growth Sound Transit has seen since 2016 as one of the driving factors.

Rogoff has seen a fair share of controversy during his tenure as Sound Transit CEO. In 2017, he was denied a $31,290 performance bonus after criticism for his “brusque and forceful” management style. Sound Transit then hired and paid a management coach $35,000 to help Rogoff get along better with employees. All that was following reports of verbal aggression, profanity, and sexism, among other allegations.

This year, Washington state Senator Steve O’Ban publicly called for the transit agency to deny the pay raise and bonus for the Sound Transit CEO.

In July, it was reported that Sound Transit’s Lynwood expansion was $700 million over-budget, on top of the the Light Rail project to Federal Way that went over budget by nearly half a billion dollars.

More recently, in October, it was discovered that Sound Transit installed the wrong escalators at UW’s light rail station. That led to frequent break-downs and malfunctions, costing more than $20 million in replacements.

Next, Rogoff’s proposed bonus will go to the full Sound Transit board before it can be be finalized.

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