The new law will prohibit similar episodes.

Not only will it require the mayor to put severance agreements in writing at the time he hires a chief administrative officer or department head, and asks for council approval.

It also will prohibit any employee from collecting a severance check and then returning to the city as an employee, contractor or agent of a contractor within a year, unless the money is repaid.

Council members were surprised and angered last summer after learning that Reid was given a $44,000 severance when he quit his job as Ogden's community and economic development director.

The severance didn't come to light until after Reid, a former Salt Lake City council member, contracted to manage the city's Business Depot Ogden for nearly $78,000 a year. That job previously was filled by a city employee. Unlike a city employee, Reid will be able to have other clients while managing BDO.

An ordinance the council approved in late 1999 allows severance payments only to those department heads who are terminated.

Mayor Matthew Godfrey had defended paying Reid a severance, which he said was part of a verbal agreement the two made when Reid was hired in January 2000.

Godfrey had just been elected at the time, and Reid had lost to Rocky Anderson in the Salt Lake City mayoral primary several months earlier.

Bill Cook, executive director of the council, said Tuesday that an investigation of Reid's severance determined it was legal because it was verbal and binding and because the 1999 ordinance was not in effect when Reid and Godfrey made their agreement.

Although the council passed the ordinance and intended it to take effect in late December 1999 so that any department heads replaced by Godfrey would get severance, it didn't go to the mayor's office until Jan. 7, just after Godfrey became mayor.

He decided not to sign the law, which should have meant it became law 15 days after he received it, Cook said. However, the ordinance was not published until March 2000 and then became law.

Council members asked questions but had little to say about the new ordinance before unanimously adopting it Tuesday.

Godfrey was in California, but John Patterson, his chief administrative officer, assured the council the mayor has no other verbal agreements with employees concerning severance.

“That's important,” said councilman Kent Jorgenson. “Once this is approved, we're fresh. We're starting new. “

Patterson, a former West Valley City manager who later worked as Ogden's and then Salt Lake County's public works director, joined Ogden in August. Godfrey gave him an employment agreement that assures Patterson of three years worth of pay even if he's terminated before the three years are up. Patterson is the city's highest paid official, making $117,000 this year.