Jul. 12—Bobby Magee’s tenure with the City of Lodi is coming to and end next week.
The Lodi City Council on Wednesday will remove Magee as city treasurer and appoint accounting manager Chia Lor to the post.
Magee was hired in December as the city’s interim assistant city manager on a temporary, part-time basis to replace Andrew Keys, who was let go last summer. A month later, the council appointed Magee city treasurer.
According to Wednesday’s staff report, Magee is nearing the limit on the 1,300 hours allowed for a part-time employee and will be leaving the city on July 20.
Magee’s time with the city was not without controversy, as questions arose after city manager Scott Carney was placed on administrative leave about his connections to consultants that received large no-bid contracts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
It was learned in May that Magee once worked as a “special advisor” to a firm that was later acquired by Baker Tilly, which recently prepared the city’s 2024-25 budget.
When a Nevada improvement district was looking for a new interim finance director, Baker Tilly recommended Magee and was paid a $10,000 “placement fee” for that referral, according to an invoice reviewed by the News-Sentinel.
The city has paid Baker Tilly $308,900 to perform a library assessment, update a 30-year financial forecast, and perform consulting services for the finance division since Magee came on board.
In addition, in emails recently obtained by the News-Sentinel through a public records request, employees claim that Magee instructed certain finance employees to stop doing certain tasks and to allow work to pile up so there would be justification to hire more employees.
Magee told the council earlier this year that bank reconciliations were months behind and hundreds of customer emails that had not been answered.
Magee disputed the allegations.
“Since I started working in the City Manager’s Office in December of 2024, we have been diligently working to review and address a number of issues resulting from City of Lodi accounts that had not been reconciled, in some instances, in over nine years,” Magee said in response to the allegations. “We brought this to the public’s attention in April of 2025. Our office is responsible to the public and the citizens of Lodi to account for every tax dollar. This has been the main objective for my entire employment history with the City of Lodi. Any statement or allegation to the contrary is at best pure fiction and at worst malicious disinformation.”
Questions about Magee’s relationship with Baker Tilly have stoked speculation that things were made to look bad so that consulting contracts could be given to the firm.
Magee told the News-Sentinel that he has received no compensation from consultants with which the city is currently under contract.
When asked if he had any financial connection to the consultants hired in Lodi, Magee said he had not been compensated by any consulting firm contracted with the city.
Magee began his career in government as assistant fleet manager for San Joaquin County, and then served as deputy county administrator from 2003 to 2012.
In 2014, he founded the Moralta Group consulting firm, working for the cities of Daly City and Santa Cruz, to develop policy and procedure, conduct fiscal oversight, and improve governmental reporting standards.
However, in 2016 Magee was listed as a special advisor with Management Partners, Inc., which assisted the City of Stockton during its bankruptcy.
Carney was an assistant city manager at the time time, but it is unclear if he and Magee worked together or even knew each other.
Management Partners became a part of Baker Tilly in 2022.