Monday, October 11, 2010

Say What?

The school system has received 18.3 million dollars in stimulus money from the feds. Some of the board members are suggesting giving the money to the teachers by getting rid of furlough days. One board member even said “Our employees need some relief right now while we have money to do that because they have supported this system without their earned step increases.” Say what? Praise for the teachers? You want to give them money?

Sheriff Tom Brown is not furloughing his people, in fact, he is paying overtime.

E911 people have been getting overtime for years.

But the police department? Furloughs,with strong rumors of 15 furlough days in 2011. All overtime has been cut out. No merit increases in years. When's the last time we had a cost of living adjustment? Insurance and pension contributions going up.

Our commissioners get 39 million dollars of stimulus money and all they can think to do is buy buildings that cost millions of dollars as shrines, called police precincts, so they can show their constituents what a wonderful job they are doing.

This all coincides with Comstat coming back. If the county is going to spend millions of dollars on buildings, by God they want results! The commanders will be forced to fudge the numbers to give the illusion that buildings deter crime.

How about this novel idea; Give us our furlough days back, pat us on the back, and maybe our attitudes will improve.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are you stupid or just dumb? This is FEDERAL TAX money. This isn't free money!!!!!! All this means is that taxpayers across the US get to support the DeKalb County school system. This isn't helping ANYONE.

All we've managed to do is saddle our future generations with massive amounts of debt.

You forgot to mention the other part of the story. The school system is going to be 50 MILLION in debt next year. Nothing is being done to address the real problem and that problem is there is not enough money to sustain the current system. Either you cut salaries and/or jobs or raise revenue/taxes. Again people thats 50 million after they cut 100 million last year. Just so you guys can wrap your heads around that number...that would mean firing 500 chiefs at 100k a year.

C'mon people think!!!!

Anonymous said...

Who said anything about free money? If your going to be handing out taxpayer money, may as well put it in our pockets rather than some building!

Anonymous said...

Anon 2:05,

Maybe your reading comprehension isn't too good, let me explain. The so called stimulus money the school board is getting has to be used for salary and etc., not for buildings. Now answer this, if you have a 50 Million shortfall this year and give raises out because you get a one year check from the feds what do you do next year when you're short AGAIN. You still haven't fixed your problem. You'll just be that much shorter in the next year.

The bond money the county wants to use can ONLY be used for infrastructure. Atleast that money has to be paid back, the DeKalb voters can debate whether its a good deal or not. The point is one is just a blank check/band-aid and the other actually has to be paid back. So great, as you said, the feds will continue to give out money but its ok as long as it comes to you.

Your way of thinking is the part of the reason the Federal government will NEVER get out of debt.

Anonymous said...

DeKalb County government is very inefficient. The study by Georgia State University showed that it had about 15% more personnel (police excluded) than comparable counties. The study recommended that at least 900 employees be let go. The BOC could not face the reality of terminating employees (probably a lot of friends and family)and (Dr. Bell)constructed the early buyout program for which it borrowed $43 million from the pension fund. Has anyone seen a plan as to how that money is to be repaid to the pension fund. By the way, Dr. Bell was one of the first to take the money and run. That shows that he has a lot of confidence in DKC.

The school system might use the $18 million to make a payment to the pension plan that it skipped making last year.