Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Richard Elliott Of WSB Reports On Our Lost Hoidays, We're Not Sure Why

Richard Elliott, whom we don't have a beef with, did a miserable job of questioning Burrell Ellis about our lost holiday pay. Of course Burrell gives the excuse that it is a balanced approach to solving the county's budget woes, and get this; it's fair!

Huh? Fair? Burrell Ellis and all the commissioners, each and every one, will still get paid holidays. Fair? Richard, how could you let Ellis slither away without asking him how he and the entire BOC can look the public in the eye while they take money from our pocket and put it in theirs?

Jeff Wiggs, the F.O.P. president says he wants a lot more information before he is willing to sign off on the lost holidays. What more information do you need Jeff? We are losing 3 paid holidays and the commissioners will still get their holiday pay.

Balanced approach? Fairness? We can't seem to find our citation book, we'll just have to write more warnings.

This is maddening!

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Anyone who believes any words coming from Burrell Ellis and his Board of Crooks is in the dark and does not know whats going on in this county. We (the taxpayers and the employees) of this screwed up county know what the real truth is. The whole bunch including the Chief Embeszzlement Officer are a bunch of liars and story tellers.

None of them knows whats going on here and will never know as long as they are in the elected positions that they are in. SBS is one of the bigest idiots of them all along with Radar "Rader".

Simply put.....All it is words coming from all those mouths and nothing is being said......Poof!!!

CLARK GRISWOLD said...

Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here!! We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny f%&^ing Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of a$$holes this side of the nuthouse...

Anonymous said...

Ok so lets me make sure I understand this: if you work on the holiday you get paid. But you still loose the holiday as a banked holiday? This is the most creative 6 day furlow made to look like its a 3 day furlow I have ever seen before. If the math is right; almost everyone will be furlowed either one day, or two days. without evening knowing it.....

Excited to go out and write a pile of warning citations. said...

That's correct....if you work the Holiday, you get paid.... what we all lose is the Banked holiday ("as you all know....".. Bitch!)..... now if you take a holiday on that holiday, you wont get paid and you can't make up those ten hours with sick, banked holiday or vacation time.


If you want your take home pay to remain the same in order to make rent, you need to work that day...... you can't call in sick, use banked holiday, use vacation or sick time ALREADY earned.

Anonymous said...

Furloughs would have been better, but the "other" elected officials such as the Sheriff, former DA, courts didn't take the same hit so we get stuck with unpaid holidays. The way the elected officials passed this unpaid stuff was so that only those working would get paid. This doesn't just apply to us beat cops, it applies from the Chief on down. It also hits every employee's paycheck except those highest up on the food chain who can afford it the most.

All County employees are in the same boat and the money savings for citizens comes again on the backs of employees. Citizens get a free ride with no apparent reduction in service for the reduced amount of money employees are taking home.

At least with the furloughs when you called some offices, it took longer to serve the public because some people were out... the public shared the pain. And with the furloughs we got an additional 4 days off (even if it was unpaid). Now we're working the same amount for less money!

Anonymous said...

DeKalb's leaders were among the first to institute the use of "unpaid-holidays" to balance the budget. I researched the Internet when the idea was announced, in the whole country only one small town and one small county had adopted the idea, for two days each, in each case, the government leaders acknowledged that the "unpaid holidays" were salary cuts and graciously thanked their employees for their sacrifice for the sake of the community.
DeKalb leaders went much further, and were not near as gracious in their recognition of the employees sacrifice. Instead DeKalb politicians arrogantly announced they were exempt from the "unpaid holidays" due to state law, when cornered by reporters they blithely replied that they would send refund checks back to the county for the "unpaid holidays" but no reporters followed up on the issue and knowing DeKalb politicians, most likely never sent in the checks.
The issue of the unpaid holidays from an employees perspective is that in reality it is a pay-cut for the employees. The employees still work the same hours, but receive less pay, and get no credit from the politicians for their sacrifice.
It would be one thing if the employees were over-paid and under-worked as we are stereotyped, but in most cases the opposite is the norm.
Personally in my case I was making 20 percent less than my counterparts in surrounding counties and working a lot harder, both in time and productivity. It would be one thing if the county had a really lousy network, instead we built a high-speed, extremely redundant network valued at 400 million for about 5 million dollars including labor.
No good deed goes unpunished by DeKalb political leadership.
Best of luck mates!

Anonymous said...

The citizens didn't get a break as you state. They got stuck with a 4.4 mil tax increase that promised them was to cover the budget shortfalls. Wow, someone lied, no helicopter, no recruits, unpaid days, and more disgruntled low morale officers. Tax payers took a shaft in this also. Just where is the additional money from the tax increase going? Vote these criminals out!!!

Anonymous said...

He found money to pay Sheila Edwards and Keith Barker when he fired them for their stupid actions.

Where did that money come from for them?

Anonymous said...

If commissioners and the CEO can get paid and not take a furlough well so can I. It's a holiday right well guess what that means u have to pay me time and half if I work on a holiday go ahead take my banked holiday your just going to end up paying me more for a holiday. Mess with my pay go head not pay me go ahead. lawsuit pending. Hostile work environment loss wages stress can cause accidents and lead to someone getting hurt hows that for u. And who is responsible CEO Burrell Ellis. Hope u have enough money in the bank for a payout and I don't mean Dekalb I mean Ellis anyone can make a claim lawsuit

Anonymous said...

you know he's lieing........HIS LIPS ARE MOVING!!!!!

Anonymous said...

I think your all are crying over nothing. I dont get paid at my job for the holiday. Plus look at this way you get to drive your cars to part time jobs, run them for hours at a time with gas prices at $3.00 a gallon and you pay nothing back to the department which is using my tax dollars. There is your Holiday pay!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Dumb ass! We don't have take homes for the most part... holiday pay... you have off for Thanksgiving and Christmas ...same idea for cops and firemen ...only we get a "banked holiday " because we are either working or off. You obviously haven't a clue about us, what we do or how we are compensated for protecting your candy ass.

We're a little pissed about taking on more responsibility each year and taking home LESS!2