including four chiefs, who received disability pensions and workers' compensation settlements when they were compelled to leave their jobs at the city of Bell. The California Public Employees Retirement System, or CalPERS, asked Bell officials to ascertain whether Rizzo approved retirement deals that enhanced payments to those officers, the Los Angeles Times reported on its website May 11, 2011. "If Rizzo wanted to get rid of you, he'd make some way to pay you off and make it beneficial for you financially", said former Chief Andreas Probst, who was granted a $250,000 workers' compensation settlement and an annual disability retirement of $158,057. Probst claimed his retirement was properly handled because he had suffered on-duty injuries in a crash with a drunk driver. But he said Rizzo bundled severance pay, and pay for unused sick and vacation days, owed to him into the workers' compensation settlement, which authorities said would violate the tax codes. Other city officials The city's website showed that seven more city workers received excessively high salaries, with two making more than $400,000 per year and three making more than $200,000. Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia collected $376,288 a year, with a similar 12% annual pay increase, more than the top administrator for Los Angeles County. Bell Police Chief Adams, who oversaw a 46-person department, had an annual salary of $457,000, which is 33% higher than the LAPD police chief, Charlie Beck who oversees 12,899 employees in Los Angeles and earns $307,000. In 2009, 11 officers in Bell were paid more than $10,000 in overtime. One officer billed $26,109 in overtime. All of the part-time city council members collected almost $100,000 a year, excepting Councilman Lorenzo Velez. Velez, who was paid only about $8,000 a year for his service on the council, has said he had no idea of the exorbitant salaries other officials were collecting. He has also testified that he didn't remember participating in any of the meetings for which other council members billed the city tens of thousands of dollars. Council members in cities similar to Bell in size make an average of $4,800 a year. California Attorney General Jerry Brown and L.A. prosecutors investigated whether the council salaries violated a state law that regulates how much council members are paid. Lourdes Garcia, the city's director of administrative services, and Eric Eggena, the director of general services, were paid more than $400,000 each. Garcia has