UPDATED AT 6:00 PM
VIDEOS
COMMISSIONER RICHARD REGULA
ASK BOE OFFICIALS
ARE THE FOUR NEW JOBS GOING TO BE POSTED?
===============================
COMMISSIONERS CREIGHTON & BERNABEI
DRESS DOWN
BOE OF ELECTIONS OFFICIALS
FOR
BREAKING
2% RAISE GUIDELINES
The commissioners are now in the depths of their yearly budget hearings and these hearings, in particular, yield a great deal of information for The Report to repackage into blogs which make Stark Countians some the best informed people about their county, township, village and city governments in the entire country.
Yesterday, representatives (Director Jeff Matthews, Deputy Director Jeanette Mullane, Republican Board Member Curt Braden and Democrat Board Member Sam Ferruccio) of the Stark County Board of Elections (BOE') trooped into the the commissioners' meeting room on the second floor of the Stark County Office Building for their time before the commissioners.
In the course of the back and forth between the commissioners and Director Matthews was Matthews' revelation that the BOE 2014 budget included the hiring of four additional employees in the year 2014.
Here is Richard Regula with his questions and Matthews' answer.
What a hoot! - no?
Not only the Stark County Board of Elections but any Ohio Board of Elections posting job listings for the taxpaying general public citizenry to apply for prompts a "you have to be kidding!"
The public perception is that these jobs only go to the politically connected, plain and simple.
To say it again: "job posting" by a Board of Elections.
Laugh, laugh, laugh and laugh some more! Ha!, Ha!, Ha!
The SCPR thinks that Matthews stumbled and bumbled all over the place answering Regula's question and the latter revealed (as least that is what The Report thinks) that three of the four "non-posted" to the public have already been hired, subject to official BOE approval.
It is irony upon irony that each of Ohio's 88 counties have a department of government that is all about citizens having a choice (called elections) run by unelected, politically appointed folks who only have to account to the county Democratic and Republican party chairmen.
Hmm?
As soon as The Report could get to a computer, an email was fired off to Deputy Director Jeannette Mullane asking follow up questions, to wit:
Jeanette,
With respect to the four hires referred to by Matthews in today's budget presentation, I have the following questions:
What are the job titles?
How much is each position to be paid as a starting salary?
With respect to the three hires to be made in January, have the candidate for those jobs been selected subject to the approval of the board?
If so, what are their names.
When is the four hire contemplated to be made?
Thanks,
Martin Olson
SCPR
MULLANE'S INITIAL ANSWER
Jeanette,
With respect to the four hires referred to by Matthews in today's budget presentation, I have the following questions:
What are the job titles? Clerks
How much is each position to be paid as a starting salary? $15.60 per hour or $32,459.65 annual
With respect to the three hires to be made in January, have the candidate for those jobs been selected subject to the approval of the board? The Board hires the employees.
If so, what are their names.
When is the four hire contemplated to be made? Unknown at this time.
Note that Mullane does not answer "all" the questions posed, to wit: "If so, what are their names?"
However, the SCPR, if anything, is persistent:
The Report's "reply" attempt to get Mullane to answer "all" the questions posed.
MULLANE'S REPONSE TO THE SCPR'S FOLLOW UP
Why do you think that might be?
Hmm?
'Tis a puzzlement, no?
Well, Ms. Mullane, Director Matthews and each and every one of the Stark County Board of Elections can be assured that the SCPR will be at the January 21st meeting to record it all.
Of course the SCPR had to fight (Blog Link) for the right to videotape Stark BOE proceedings (Blog Link).
Courtesy of the work of Stark County commissioners' "second-in-command" administrator Chris Nichols (who obtained the information from the Stark auditor's office), The Report is publishing the current payroll of various departments of government.
Since, today's blog, the Stark County Board of Elections is the topic, below is the payroll as this month. Of course, next month there will be three additions $32,459.75 (access denied to the general Stark County public courtesy of unelected "highly partisan" public officials) with a fourth to follow soon.
The BOE completely blew off the commissioners on their guidelines of no more than two percent (2%) increases in Stark County departments for 2013.
The chief, Matthews, (chairman of the Stark County Republican Party [an unpaid position] who was making a "mere" $78,708 (plus about $25,000 in benefits) gets a 4.3% increase to reach $80,000. A nice, neat rounded off number, no?. And the man apparently includes himself in the category of these "poor employees" the haven't a raise in 4 or 5 years.
Now that's a convincing argument for a person who in total compensation package is likely well over $100,000 annually all of which is paid by the Stark County taxpayers, isn't it?
And look at Travis Secrest who has dutifully run for a couple "sacrificial lamb" campaigns for the Stark Republicans. Wow! From $31,514 to $41,200 (a whooping 30.7% increase) all within one year and he is a person that has not been on the job all that long. And, again, you can tack on about another $12,000 annually in benefits so that his total taxpayer dollars take is over $50,000 annually.
Not to neglect the Democrats, there is Holly Tichnor who got a 12.7% increase in 2013.
In this video, see Commissioner Janet Creighton and Tom Bernabe take BOE members Republican Curt Braden and Democrat Sam Ferruccio to task for the flagrant BOE disregarding of the commissioners' 2% raise guidelines.
Since members of the BOE; namely Demeatrious St. John, Sam Ferruccio (the Democrats) and Curt Braden, William Cline (the Republicans) are unelected, the only accountability for elected officials are Commissioners Bernabei, Creighton and Regula.
Right now the only consequence is "a dressing down by the commissioners" as seen in the video.
Of course, for the likes of St. John, Ferruccio, Braden and Cline, you just "grin and bear it."
For the commissioners' admonitions to mean anything, they are going to have to come up with "real world" consequences for county government entities that in effect tell them that their guidelines mean nothing to them.
We shall see what the commissioners do in devising effective measures to stop the "thumbing of the nose" they are experiencing by the likes of the Stark County Board of Election members.
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