Syracuse Housing Authority paid former Executive Director Bill Simmons more than $274,000 after he agreed to retire a year before his contract with SHA was set to expire, according to a copy of the separation agreement obtained by Central Current through a public records request.
Simmons joined SHA in 2006 as the authority’s assistant director before taking over as executive director in 2007. His contract was set to expire July 31, 2027. Simmons had been adamant he would not leave the housing authority when pressed by a Central Current reporter earlier this year. He said he planned to serve out his full term.
However, a financial package motivated him to take an early retirement, said Simmons, who will turn 69 in August. Until now, the details of that package had not been made public.
At the time he resigned, Simmons deferred to the board when asked about the details of the package. The board at the time declined to provide details of the financial package. Simmons did not reply to a request for comment about the separation agreement.
According to the separation agreement, SHA board of commissioners and Simmons entered into an “amicable separation agreement” which included a severance payout of $274,146 to settle “all claims for salary and accrued vacation time through the end of the contract term on July 31, 2027.”
According to See Through New York’s payroll records, Simmons made $182,582 in 2025 as the executive director of the housing authority. Simmons was the third-highest paid executive director in Upstate New York.
As part of his separation agreement, Simmons received more than $90,000 for what appears to be nearly six months of accrued vacation time.
SHA’s vacation policy depends on the number of years of employment, explained Jalyn Clifford, the acting executive director at SHA. Clifford served as Simmons’ deputy and was unanimously voted in by the board the day he announced his early retirement.
Clifford was unable to disclose the number of vacation days that led to Simmons’ $90,000 payout due to the confidentiality clause included in the separation agreement.
Zilvinias Silenas, the president and CEO at the Empire Center, called the payout a waste of taxpayer dollars. Silenas questioned how Simmons was able to accrue so much vacation time.
“The trend is taxpayers’ money [being] abused in New York, and this is just another public agency having high wages and now high payouts,” Silenas said.
Rachael Fauss, a senior policy advisor at good government organization Reinvent Albany, said payouts like Simmons’ are standard, however.
Fauss, however, criticized a non-disparagement clause in the separation agreement which requires Simmons and SHA’s board to refrain from publicly bashing each other.
The clause limits the kinds of oral, written and electronic statements — even repeating statements made by others — that are “disparaging, deleterious, maliciously untrue, or damaging to the integrity, reputation, or goodwill” of each other. This appears to prevent board members from publicly criticizing Simmons’ performance as the head of SHA.
“This is the government, and you’re basically saying that someone who’s funded by taxpayers, no one’s allowed to talk about the performance of that individual,” Fauss said. “That shouldn’t be part of the terms of public employment. Having agreements to keep things secret is kind of counter to what the government should be doing.”
Without a legally binding reason, such “blanket rules” should not exist, she said. Reinvent Albany is backing a bill that will prevent the use of non-disclosure agreements in corporate subsidy deals.
“No one should be prevented from speaking about how the actions of the public official affect the public,” Fauss said.
Although July 10 was his last date of employment, Simmons agreed to assist and provide consultation to SHA for eight weeks to ensure a smooth transition. He may work for up to five hours each week.
An embattled Simmons and the board came to the agreement after he was at the center of more than a year’s worth of controversies surrounding the billion-dollar redevelopment of public housing on the Southside. Two mayors and multiple elected officials have questioned Simmons’ leadership of the project. Allegations of a lack of transparency, uncertainty around deadlines and infighting among board members have mired the last 18 months of Simmons’ tenure.
Mayor Sharon Owens has long called for a change in leadership atop the housing authority. Had the board wanted to oust Simmons, it would have needed four votes — a majority of the board — to fire him. Of the seven board members, a majority are close allies to Owens.
Simmons’ departure came amid housing authority entering its seventh year of redeveloping public housing in the city’s Southside. The redevelopment could affect residents who live in 672 units of housing in McKinney Manor and Pioneer Homes. The billion-dollar project will also result in the addition of over 750 additional apartment units, which will include market rate apartments. The redevelopment was supposed to happen alongside the teardown of the Interstate 81 viaduct.
Here is a list of salaries for executive directors in 2025 across major upstate New York cities:
| Name | Housing Authority | Salary |
| Robert R. Calli | Utica Housing Authority | $204,932 |
| Shawn D. Burr | Albany Housing Authority | $183,980 |
| William J. Simmons | Syracuse Housing Authority | $182,582 |
| Brenda C. Westfall | Ithaca Housing Authority | $170,250 |
| Gillian D. Brown | Buffalo Housing Authority | $165,212 |
| Chiquita D. D’Arbeau | Albany Housing Authority | $163,023 |
| Jean G. Westcott | Binghamton Housing Authority | $145,722 |
| Nathan Varland | Batavia Housing Authority | $102,278 |
| Eric Fields | Niagara Falls Housing Authority | $97,355 |
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