FBI chief's departure raises questions over L.A. office leadership.

When Richard Garcia announced that he would retire from the FBI after serving the top post in Los Angeles for 16 months, he cited family reasons.

He also admitted that the pay wasn't all that great.

"I was a special agent in charge in Houston when I was sent to L.A., in a promotion where I actually lost money," said Garcia, who plans to head back to the Texas city to find a job in the private sector.

Since the 2001 terrorist attacks, an increasing number of top-level FBI supervisors and agents have retired early to join private security firms, which can pay around $250,000--an amount that only a handful of the very highest ranking FBI managers can command under government salary guidelines.

It's a particular problem in Los Angeles, where housing prices and the cost of living have skyrocketed, making it more challenging for the FBI to retain both agents and managers.

The office is one of the biggest in the United States, with 800 agents and a jurisdiction ranging from Santa Barbara to Palm Springs. Only a handful of managers are qualified to run it, and they're the ones often close to retirement.

The result has been a revolving door of assistant directors in charge, the highest position at the bureau in Los Angeles. Since 1999, the local office has had three chiefs, all of whom retired in two years or less and were replaced by acting directors on a temporary basis. Also, about 20 percent of the supervisors are serving on an interim basis.

"The problem with the L.A. office is because it's a large office the guys who are assigned to it are at the twilight of their career," said one retired Los Angeles FBI manager, who contends that turnover has lowered morale in the office.

James DeSarno Jr. took the top post--assistant director in charge--in August 1999 and retired in June 2001 to join Guardsmark LLC, a private security firm. He was replaced in September 2001 by Ron Iden, who retired two years later and, after a brief stint as the state's director of homeland security, is head of worldwide security operations at Walt Disney Co.

Garcia, who took over in February 2004, plans to stay until July when a replacement is named.

"When you have the experience to become an assistant director in charge, you're already at that age that you're eligible to retire, or very close to," said Paul Magallanes, a retired FBI special agent and president of Magallanes Associates International Inc. "Richard Garcia was at that age, or very close to, to be eligible to retire."

Garcia downplayed concerns about a lack of leadership in the office. And while hiring for mid-management positions has been on hold for the past year, he said it's because there is a move in Washington to re-vamp the bureau's promotional system for senior executives so it's based more on performance and less on seniority. That should ultimately mean younger faces at top positions.

FBI agents have expressed concerns to U.S. attorneys about the rate of turnover and high cost of living in Los Angeles. "It's just too expensive here, that's a problem," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Ellyn Lindsay, who works frequently with the FBI in Los Angeles. "They have to live way out in the boondocks because they can't be paid enough."

The FBI pay scale--referred to as the General Schedule, or GS, scale by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management--has not kept pace with the rising cost of living in several major cities, including Los Angeles.

According to the OPM's salary tables, agent salaries start at just $19,483 and run up to $140,300. But a typical L.A.-based agent with several years of experience makes about $90,000.

That compares favorably with the salaries of police officers and deputies at the California Highway Patrol, county sheriff's departments and municipal police departments. But FBI agents are on salary and not eligible for overtime that can substantially raise other law enforcement pay.

Senior executives at the agency earn more, often between $150,000 and $225,000, but they can do better by retiring and then taking a job in the private sector--in effect drawing two salaries without any penalty.

Another problem: pay caps for the FBI's senior executives, which make it difficult to receive bonuses. Last year, Garcia said he received a performance-based bonus but could only take half of it at a time because of the caps. And the cost-of-living adjustment is so "skewed it doesn't really help," he said, noting that the "percentage in Houston is higher than L.A."

Making changes

In a report released last year on pay and benefits for federal law enforcement officials, the OPM called the GS pay scale "outdated, inflexible, market-insensitive and performance-insensitive." The report recognized "significant pay disparities" in major cities such as San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles.

The report has been submitted to Congress for review. But officials in Washington have been focused on other problems at the FBI.

Earlier this month, Department of Justice Inspector General Glenn Fine released a report detailing how the FBI, including officials in Los Angeles, missed at least five opportunities to uncover information about the Sept. 11 hijackers. And the House Appropriations Committee criticized the FBI in a budget bill this month for not making more changes recommended by the bi-partisan panel that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks.

Amid those issues, staying at the FBI may make little sense after 50. Iden, who left six months before the mandatory retirement age of 57, said the only career options for those at the top level in Los Angeles are four positions in Washington that may or may not be available.

Meanwhile there are plenty of private sector jobs available that are far less stressful. "You can't believe how free of stress I was when I left that job," said Magallanes. "I used to have backaches because I bad an injury. When I retired, there were no more backaches."