It's unfortunate that Edina's venerable city manager Gordon Hughes is retiring just as a California scandal involving a city manager making $800,000 a year made national headlines and further fired antigovernment sentiments.

Hughes, whose steady hand helped the suburb score a coveted "strong" financial management assessment from Standard & Poor's, spent his last few weeks at work fending off critics of his employment contract. A clause in it called for Hughes to be paid for unused vacation and sick leave. A guy who skimped on vacations and rarely took a sick day -- he used an average of 2.5 days a year during his tenure as a city manager -- Hughes piled up quite a bit of both under the city's fairly ordinary accrual rates during his 36 years with the city. His eyebrow-raising separation payment: $229,455.

Hughes, however, doesn't deserve to be lumped in with the California city manager who abused his community and his position. Nor does he deserve the same criticism aimed at some metro-area superintendents who left with big payments for unused time after brief, disastrous tenures.

Hughes' predecessor was compensated for unused time when he left, and Hughes' contract is straightforward on the subject, despite some critics' contentions. As the CEO of what Edina mayor James Hovland calls a $70 million operation, Hughes' compensation through the years appears reasonable compared with that of other city managers and private-sector chief executives. Hughes' annual base salary was about $142,000 at the end of his career.

At the same time, the concerns raised about Hughes' payment should spur other cities to improve transparency when it comes to compensating high-level, high-performing employees. It also illustrates the wisdom of one clause tucked deep within the massive financial regulatory overhaul recently passed by Congress. The bill will launch a two-year study of municipal finance disclosure. It will specifically address a 35-year-old law that prevents the SEC from holding local governments to the same financial disclosure requirements as corporations. That could lead to municipal employees' total compensation being conveniently posted on the SEC website, where the compensation for many corporate executives is listed now.

In Edina, Hughes and Hovland argue that the city manager contract was clear and transparent. Anyone could get it by calling and requesting a copy, they say. That's true, but few people would go to that length. Even fewer would expect that a small clause about unused time could lead to such a large payout, since sick time is often capped. As a result, the big separation payment caught voters by surprise. When state and local government budgets have taken a hit because of the economy, the payment raised understandable questions about the city's use of resources.

Going forward, Edina and other cities should consider financial incentives that reward high-level employees on a periodic basis instead of waiting until their departure or retirement. Separation payments should also be outlined more clearly instead of depending on an unknown quantity of unused time. The state's public salary cap creates constraints, but these reforms are doable in many situations.

Hughes retired Friday. While he likely didn't enjoy spending his last days on the job answering personal financial questions, the discussion kicked up by his separation agreement was timely. Cities across the state should be looking at ways to compensate deserving employees more regularly and more transparently -- in ways that don't encourage them to forego vacations or work when they're sick. In no way does this diminish Hughes' decades of dedication. Rather, it ended them on a useful and productive note.