HOUSTON (FOX 26) - Mayor Sylvester Turner is under heavy scrutiny after the revelation he triggered the creation of a $95,000 a year, publicly funded internship at the Houston Airport System for recent law graduate Marvin Agumagu.
Today the Mayor defended the decision and criticized the reporting that brought the issue to light...
A spokesman for the Mayor today said the well-paid internship awarded Agumagu was not unique and is on par with compensation with other senior staff analysts.
But by mid-morning, Houston Council Member Dwight Boykins, who chairs the Ethics Committee and is also running against Turner, announced the opening of an investigation into the propriety of the position.
“You have city employees e-mailing me daily, on the hour, about how long they’ve been working and not earning that kind of salary,” said Boykins.
Mayoral Candidate Bill King crunched the numbers and says the intern’s salary is a slap to the face of other Houston City workers.
“This young man, because of some personal relationship with Sylvester, gets a job making more than 95 percent of the other city employees, city employees ought to be outraged about this,” said King.
Candidate Sue Lovell said voters should be disturbed Turner denied knowing Agumagu in the face of overwhelming photographic evidence that he did.
“Are we to a point that interns can call department heads and say the Mayor says create me a job and it gets created within 20 days? You can’t even get a permit from the City of Houston in 20 days,” said Lovell...
Spokespeople for the Mayor say Agumagu is highly educated and deserving of an executive level position. They also say the “hiring freeze” did not apply to the Houston Airport System...
Don't "senior" people have years of experience?
On the other hand I was looking for typical first year salaries for lawyers and found this:https://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/paying/articles/2018-07-26/what-type-of-salary-you-can-expect-with-your-law-degree
$190,000 per year plus signing bonus for a new graduate from a top law school? Yikes!
because of some personal relationship with Sylvester
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A “deeply” personal relationship, I’m guessing.