Monday, March 14, 2011

B.O.C. To Look At Leave Time

Tomorrow, the B.O.C. will have a committee meeting to examine whys to screw us, uh, we mean, change the policy on annual and sick leave.

Currently, employees are allowed to have 480 hours of vacation time at the end of the year. If approved, the maximum annual leave time accrual will only be 360 hours. Hours beyond 360 will roll into sick time. For employees less than 10 years, the maximum annual accrual would be 240 hours. This would be effective June 1, 2011.

Employees over 25 years will only be able to accrue 27 days of vacation time annually. Currently, that rate is 30 days annually.

For retiring employees, there will be no more 1 for 15 sick day pay out upon retirement. This was used to bring the final vacation hours pay-out to 480 hours.

Just call it the invasion of City of Atlanta Misfits.

It all began with Vernon Jones,..of course. Vernon brought over Micheal Bell after Bell successfully took part in destroying the city of Atlanta's finances under Maynard Jackson. After Bell's arrival to DeKalb Director of Finance, our health insurance benefits were reduced while premiums increased time and time again. Taxpayer money wasted on numerous project, the county's financial dire straits begin.

Still during the rule of Vernon Jones, Vernon hired the completely incompetent Terrell Bolton, who in turn brought over his people for the city of Atlanta. The police department is still reeling from the effects of that debacle.

Move to present day DeKalb and the rule of Lil' Burrell Ellis. Ellis named Joel Gottlieb as Dekalb County's Chief Financial Officer, who had been serving as Assistant Finance Director since 1996. 1996? Wait, wasn't Vernon still in office? And where did Mr. Gottlieb come from? Well that's right, from the financially ruined city of Atlanta. Mr. Gottlieb served as the former chair of the Atlanta City Employees Credit Union's Supervisory Committee, among other areas of finance in the city of Atlanta.

Burrell also brought over from the city of Atlanta, Benita Ransom to head our Human Resources Department. So now our leave time is being taken away from us.

So lets compare their tenure while at Atlanta and their short time here: All Atlanta employees, including police were furloughed and police positions eliminated. All Atlanta employees annual and sick leave was reduced. Sound familiar?

Isn't strange how the politicians elected by the citizens of Dekalb County go to the city of Atlanta to recruit proven failures to run DeKalb County. Seems to us that maybe, just maybe, some home grown DeKalb County citizens can do a much better job with their tax money.

The madness continues.

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

No merit increases, no raises, no cost of living and yes we are in a recession. This county has been in this mode long before the recession started.

Anonymous said...

This is no surprise, when they come to roll call and tell us we work for the citizens of DeKalb not the BOC. By the way write more tickets and help increase the revenue for the county so the BOC can waste it away.

Anonymous said...

This is a great recruited package and I cannot wait until we see the results.

Who would come to work for this place. The ones who just want a paycheck to show up and go home.

We will not have the ones who want to make this a better place to live and work. Thanks Lil Vern.

Anonymous said...

They have buried the Police Officer Reserve Program.

I wonder what is next to demoralized
this department.

Anonymous said...

You have to love this place they tell us to enforce a speed complaint.

Well we go and enforce the speed limit.

Then a commissioner calls because they now saying it a speed trap.

Commissioner Rader please make your mind up.

This was revenue in your pocket.

Anonymous said...

So what will you get for your accrued sick time when you retire now if you dont get 1 for 15? Can it still be applied as years of service, and how many sick hours can you accrue?

Anonymous said...

I guess Wiz Miller was not informed of this since he just issued a memo indicating that this stuff was merely a rumor. I thought that the BOC eliminated his position.

Anonymous said...

It's an effort to save money. There are alot of Dekalb employees resigning due to finding better jobs, etc. I recently went 10-8 and received a wonderfull "see-ya" pay-out from Dekalb for my leave time. So, it makes sense from the BOC's standpoint, but for you employees, more salt on the wounds.

Anonymous said...

Lets see if Wiz Miller and Chief O'Brien show up for the BOC vote and support the employees.

stevie said...

haaaaaaa hhhaaaaaa lol. sucks to be there.....

Anonymous said...

Well it looks like for the birth of my next child I will be taking several weeks off because now I am forced to use my time. For the last child birth I was dedicated and returned after two weeks, not now. This dumb idea will ultimately hurt the County in the long run. Now they will be paying out higher salaries for longer, when long time employees would have used sick and leave time to retire early. With this dumb idea now they will pay me my high salary for at least another year or two, add this up with probably hundreds of other employees and that is more expensive in the long run stupid.

Anonymous said...

Did anyone see the news? A Tucker Officer arrested a 65 year old lady for driving on a suspended license...the news is trying to make this Officer look like an ass. Reality of it all...Officer does his job and catches hell from the media...why won't one of the chiefs stand up and explain the Officers actions, and make our dept. look good the reality of it all is she may have been 65 years old but Officers have a certain liability to the public. The media forgot to mention that if the officer let her go and got killed or killed Someone else in leiu of a traffic accident the attorneys would. Be asking the county why the officer didn't take action...The public needs to be educated as to why things are done a certain way...please chief yarboro or O'brien stand up for us and let the media know we have a resposibility to the public as a whole not just a person to person basis.

Anonymous said...

Anon1, yep. How did the big bond issues get funded over the last decade or so? The minimal tax increase over the last decade did not match the bond spending. To acquire the revenue to pay off the bonds, good ole' Vern instituted the no "pay for performance" plan that knocked our raises down from 5 percent to 2-3 percent, which barely met the employees cost of living increase.
During the same decade Vernon and the BOC secured personal raises of 50 and 100 percent respectively. CEO Ellis and the DeKalb BOC are the highest paid local politicians in the region.
This is my beef with the political staff of DeKalb county. Individually they are the highest paid in the metro area. They have proven themselves incapable of making the tough decisions of where to cut back on a over-extended DeKalb government.
Where I live my political leaders who work for about a quarter of the cost of DeKalb officials made the tough choices and reorganized two years ago and are still making adjustments as necessary.
DeKalb rulers generic across the board cuts in the DeKalb government operations display a lack of expertise and leadership required in the current conditions of recession. Their salaries should be reduced accordingly to match their skill-set.

Anonymous said...

Ms. Levitan hired Michael Bell...not Vermin. Those of us who have been here longer than 5 minutes remember when Bell was hired. He was hired to try and raid our pension (Ms. Levitan was busy looking for money too) to free up funds for the general fund...that was found - by the Georgia Assembly - to be against the home rule charter. Seriously, anybody out there older than me that remembers this? So - you see - Vermin & Ellis are not the only ones who look at our pension and try to take money from it...it apparently is in the job description for CEO. You know what the irony is? Bell is now collecting a pension - which wouldn't be there if he had been allowed to put his grubby little hands in the kitty. Just in case you are suspecting "old timer's disease" - I was working in Finance when Levitan hired Michael Bell....

Anonymous said...

This has to be the most Anti - Employee BOC in the history of Dekalb Government. What else will you bleed from us after this. How bout looking in the mirror and realize that you are continuing to show that you could care less about the very employees who serve Dekalb County. You are creating a work enviorment where the employees are going to feel useless, if they dont already. What type of service and productivity do you think this will create for the Dekalb citizens. You are putting too many nails in the cofin and it will ultimately take years to recover the trust and respect of your employees.

Anonymous said...

This should kill any motivation left in this department except for the APPOINTED ONES who got the raises and free transportation and phone.

Just how many times are they really called out to a scene after hours that really require them to show up?

The phone probably has more personal calls than business.

Anonymous said...

Sick time can still be applied toward retirement. How about reading the information?! It's just that more vacation time will be rolled into sick time thus your sick time will accumulate faster. I guess that would give you more to burn during FMLA.

Love my job but hate my employer said...

Do these idiots (BOC and CEO) forget that they live in this county as well. We are the ones who protect the people of this county and they won't help to protect us. Sounds like we should just return the favor. No more responding to 9-1-1 call is the ritzy neighborhoods of the CEO or the BOC, Until we are protected, they will be lchedisteft as unprotected as our futures.

Anonymous said...

The officer who arrested the 65 year old lady must be one bolton's recruits or just no common sense. Really if a celebrity can get out of going to jail on a traffic charge and a politician won't go to jail on a warrant u know who that was it happen in our county then why did the officer have to take her in there's other ways to handle situations like this one. Blame is on the officer and Sgt for not showing any sympathy and common sense and using discretion. It may be her fault but maybe she should complain to CEO Ellis he's the one who created the hostile workplace so complaints are going to rise.

Anonymous said...

The pension ! Someone above said something about the BOC trying to raid our pension ! They already did last year with the $43 MILLION to the BOC to pretty up the failed early retirement ...remember? I have buy one comment to give to my fellow employees...KEEP THESE FRIGGIN IDIOTS AWAY FROM OUR PENSION and keep and eye...a really BIG friggin eye on the pension board.

Anonymous said...

Wasn't there suppose to be something spectacular taking place on March 17....if memory serves it was suppose to be a day of reckoning for the PD....guess that has been forgotten all about....Like everything else all talk no results....don't make the threat if you don't plan to follow thru....

Anonymous said...

Since this topic has gotten so far from the original post here goes;

Since when did age become a determining factor if someone goes to jail or not???? Let me get this straight...some so called police officer on here will take a 16-64 yoa to jail for suspended license but if you're 65 or over you don't??? What is that....some type of AARP discount... Idiots

Anonymous said...

The pension ! Where do politicians stick there noses at every turn...where the money is, ya'll know that. Be viligant. Watch the pension and the pension board.