D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser is flouting a city law that requires agency directors to be nominated for confirmation by the D.C. Council within six months, instead relying on interim and acting directors whose nominations are not reviewed by lawmakers and who in some cases cannot legally be paid a full salary.

At least two agencies — D.C. Health and the D.C. Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection — are currently being led by interim directors who were put in place more than 180 days ago, meaning they are working outside the timeframe allowed in D.C. law for a permanent director to be nominated.

In the case of D.C. Health, Dr. Sharon Lewis was named the agency’s interim director in late July 2022. Since then, no permanent director for the agency has been named. For the Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection, Shirley Kwan-Hui was named the new agency’s inaugural interim head on Sept. 30, 2022, a capacity she continues to serve in to date. No permanent director has yet been nominated.

Under city law, if no permanent director is nominated to run an agency within 180 days of a vacancy in that position, “no District funds may be expended to compensate any person serving in the position.” In essence, those interim directors cannot be paid a salary.

But when asked about Kwan-Hui on Monday, Bowser brushed aside the city’s law, saying she would continue being paid because she had been a D.C. government employee before taking the role of interim director. “She’s a permanent employee. She has a position. I don’t have to get around anything to pay her,” said Bowser.

Prior to taking her current post, Kwan-Hui was the deputy director of the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, which was broken up into two seperate agencies last October, including the Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection.

But Kwan-Hui did see an increase in pay when she was tapped to serve as that agency’s interim director, going from $172,000 as a deputy director of DCRA to just over $200,000 as the interim director of DLCP. The same went for Lewis, herself a longtime employee at D.C. Health. As interim director, she makes over $200,000; in her prior post as a senior deputy director of the Health Regulation and Licensing Administration, she made $170,000.

This isn’t the first time that Bowser has had interim agency directors in place for longer than the 180 days allowed by law. Anthony Crispino served as the interim director of the troubled Department of Forensic Sciences from May 2021 until last week, meaning he worked in that capacity for some 15 months beyond the 180-day threshold. Similarly, until recently Bowser appointed a series of interim directors for the Office of Unified Communications; it was only in February that she nominated Heather McGaffin to serve as the permanent director.

The situation has frustrated a number of D.C. lawmakers, who say that having interim directors serving for long periods of time sidesteps the council’s confirmation process and can impede work at individual agencies. And in worst-case scenarios, it could call into question the legality of any actions taken by interim directors who remain in place beyond the 180-day timeframe.

“Organizations need stability and longevity of leadership, someone who is not just an interim caretaker but rather allowed to develop a vision, innovate, and lead. District government is hampered by leaving agencies without a permanent head for so long. It is also against the law,” said Councilmember Brianne Nadeau (D-Ward 1), who chairs the committee that oversees DLCP, in an email. “I helped create that agency, have wanted a permanent director in that position for some time, and have asked the executive branch about that as far back as November of last year and again since I’ve been chair of the committee with oversight of DLCP.”

In an interview with WUSA 9, Council Chairman Phil Mendelson sounded a similar note of annoyance. “The mayor needs to ‘get off the pot’ and make a decision,” he said, referring to a permanent director of DLCP.  “It’s her call who to nominate but not her call to ignore the law, the council and the public process.”

It remains unclear what steps the council could take to enforce the city’s existing law, especially as it relates to the pay that interim directors serving outside the 180-day timeframe should not be getting.

Other agencies currently under the leadership of interim directors include the Office of the Chief Technology Officer and the Office of Contracting and Procurement, both of whom were appointed to the posts in April. There is at least one other agency currently being led by an interim director that is coming close to its own 180-day deadline: the Department of Energy and Environment, whose interim director Richard Jackson was named in early January. No permanent director has yet been nominated.

The city’s law setting the 180-day timeframe dates back to the late 1980s, when lawmakers were faced with a growing number of interim and acting directors heading city agencies. “The council needs to ensure that the person who administers the laws enacted by the council are indeed qualified to fill the positions to which they have been assigned, which can only be done through the confirmation process,” read a 1987 report justifying the imposition of a deadline to name permanent agency directors. (That bill initially contemplated only allowing interim directors to serve for 90 days, but was amended to 180 days.)

In D.C.’s case, Bowser says the city’s current law is too limiting, and that she is continuing the search for a number of permanent directors for agencies that need them.

“We are recruiting for a number of executive positions,” she said, adding that she would continue using interim directors. “Until we find the right person then we’ll do that, or the council will have to change [the law]. But I’m not going to say we’re just going to pick someone for six months or pick a series [of people] for six months. Does that make sense? It doesn’t make sense.”

Similar debates over non-permanent agency leaders emerged at the federal level during the Trump administration, when a number of cabinet officials remained in “acting” status for long periods of time, avoiding the Senate confirmation process and sparking concerns around the legality of certain agency actions.