Manager of one of Kern’s most powerful water agencies fired

The Kern County Water Agency fired its General Manager after only five years in the top spot at one of the most powerful water entities in the county and the state.

The agency board announced Thursday it would not renew Tom McCarthy’s contract when it expires on June 30. He will not be working for the agency through that time. The board will appoint an interim manager and has formed a committee of board members to provide continuity and “stability,” according to an agency press release.

The vote – held over the course of multiple and lengthy closed sessions during Thursday’s meeting – was unanimous, according to an agency spokesperson.

No reason was given for McCarthy’s dismissal other than, “…the Board believes this is the right time to take a new direction in leadership to meet the evolving needs of our organization and address future challenges,” according to a quote by board president Eric Averett in the agency press release.

According to Transparent California, McCarthy earned $380,000 in “regular pay” in 2023, the most recent year available. SJV Water requested McCarthy’s contract and any settlement agreements involved in his firing, but did not receive them in time for this story.

Though the agency board did not announce who the interim manager would be, insiders named Lauren Bauer, the agency’s Water Resources Manager, as the most likely candidate. Bauer has been with the agency since 2008 in the water resources department, according to her LinkedIn page.

The news came as a bit of a shock to water district managers, many of whom had been wondering about recent numerous special meetings scheduled by the agency with a closed session item listed as: “Public Employee Discipline/Dismissal/Release.”

But managers SJV Water spoke with, who didn’t want to be named, were floored to hear McCarthy had been let go.

The top spot at the agency can be a difficult position.

General managers deal with local and state agricultural and drinking water issues on a regular basis as well as working closely with the agency’s 13 “member units,” or agricultural water districts that contract through the agency for about a million acre feet of State Water Project water.

Those water districts can be a contentious bunch, each with its own unique concerns.

The agency is also very much a public entity, with part of its funding coming from property and pump taxes.

McCarthy was recruited away from the top position at the Mojave Water Agency in southern California in 2020 by the agency largely based on how he handled himself during highly charged negotiations with the Department of Water Resources over the proposed delta tunnel, which would bring water beneath the ecologically sensitive Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

McCarthy’s firing comes a little more than a year after the agency fired its longtime attorney, Amelia Minaberrigarai.

Though the agency board announced it would begin the search for a new manager immediately, area water managers wondered privately how difficult that might be given these leadership shake ups.

Whoever takes the reins will be in charge of about 60 employees, a $365 million budget and a large, complicated organization with its fingers in almost every water aspect of California water.

The Agency is the second largest contractor on the State Water Project.

Besides agricultural water, it wholesales drinking water supplies to purveyors that serve large sections of east Bakersfield.

It owns rights to high flow water on the Kern River. It is one of six entities that control the massive Kern Water Bank.  And it is one of three members that govern the Kern River Groundwater Sustainability Agency, which monitors water tables and can set pumping limits.

The agency also controls the movement of significant amounts of water into and out of the county through its Cross Valley Canal, which can move water east and west from the California Aqueduct, connecting to numerous other canals all the way to central Bakersfield.