Keith McGee would like to set a few things straight about his
retirement as chief administrative officer (CAO) for the city of
Memphis.

He does not plan to manage Mayor Willie Herenton’s campaign for the
9th congressional district seat in 2010.

He believes he “absolutely” got better at the job of CAO as he
gained experience. He has been CAO for nearly six years. The job pays
$151,900 a year. McGee, not yet 50, will be eligible for a pension in
excess of $60,000 a year.

He started thinking about retiring last year and was not pushed out
by Herenton, his boss, whom he calls “brilliant and very
compassionate.”

McGee succeeded Rick Masson, who had a background in public finance.
McGee said he earned the CAO’s job and is not a Herenton crony who was
out of his depth. He was hired at the city of Memphis in 1993 by
Westelle Florez to be her deputy director of human resources. Before
that, he worked for Shelby County, starting out as a deputy jailer in
the maximum security division in 1981. Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Shular
said he left as a manager of personnel training. McGee worked for four
sheriffs during that time.

“I had reached the highest level on civil service and was already in
senior management,” he said.

He is not retiring because of a personal relationship with any other
director or assistant director in city government under his
supervision. Asked if he has such a relationship, he said “no,” then
drew the letters N O with his hand and repeated “no.”

He is not retiring because of the controversy over the Memphis
Sexual Assault Resource Center. McGee took the heat from the Memphis
City Council two weeks ago while subordinates Ken Moody and Yolanda
McFagdon declined to answer questions.

It was “divine intervention,” McGee says, that his retirement was
announced the day after the council finished working on the operating
budget that set the tax rate at $3.19.

I interviewed McGee this week in his office in City Hall. We were
joined briefly by finance director Roland McElrath and human resources
director Lorene Essex. I had chided all of them in a column last week
about not providing the number of city employees in a timely fashion.
For the record, there are 8,227 regular and temporary city employees,
5,909 of whom are paid from the general fund operating budget that the
council set last week.

When that business was done, Essex and McElrath left.

McGee was vague about what he will do next, saying only that it
might involve “consulting.” He has two children in high school. He has
been pastor of a church in Tipton County for 17 years.

Asked if he would work on Herenton’s campaign, he said, “I have not
even talked with him about that.”

I asked him if, as the mayor’s CAO, he sees a side of Herenton in
his daily contacts that outsiders are not aware of.

“He wakes up every day working hard,” he said. “The
less-than-positive vignettes are not reflective of the man, the working
professional that I know.”

His flattering view is no surprise to City Council members, who say
McGee was above all a good soldier.

“He had the opportunity to be more effective than he was,” said City
Council chairman Myron Lowery. “He could have done a better job
building relationships within city government. His style emulated that
of his boss, the mayor. Keith was a good general following directions
from his boss.”

As an example, Lowery — who would become interim mayor if
Herenton resigns before completing his term — said council
members only learned about a church-based redevelopment plan for the
Hickory Ridge Mall after a news story came out.

“He was behind on that issue,” said Lowery. “As CAO, he should have
known, and we should have been informed.”

McGee worked with six council chairmen and says he tried to treat
all of them and their colleagues with respect. Council fights, he
noted, were not so bad, in the scheme of things. He brought out an old
picture of himself as a 21-year-old jailer when he was breaking up
fights in maximum security. Back then, his goal, he said, was to “leave
work every day in safety and security.”

At any rate, it’s water under the bridge now. On July 4th, he’s out
of here.