August /
September Report
I am combining the August and September reports to you, because my
activities have been limited as a result of a heart attack at the end
of August. I thank all of you for the many prayers, cards, phone calls,
flowers, food and other kindnesses that you have showered on my family
and myself. I also want to offer a special note of thanks to the
Friendsville Fire Department first responders, the Rural Metro EMTs,
the Blount County Deputy, and Blount Memorial Hospital staff. Without
their help, I would not be alive. With everyone's help, I am healing
quickly and expect to be back to near normal activity levels in October.
The GOOD
You will recall that in July, the Human
Resources Committee, where 9 of the 10 members are county employees or
close relatives, proposed a wacky reorganization of the HR function.
The reorganization would have taken
the HR Director
position from the Mayor and put it directly under the control of the HR
Committee. This means
the HR Committee, dominated by county employees, would be setting
benefits, benefit
costs,
personnel policies, time-off policies and salary policies. This move
also would have added $100,000 per year to the budget because the Mayor
currently has one person handling both the HR and Risk Management
responsibilities.
After reading the law on this subject, it appeared to me that the
proposed HR reorganization was flatly illegal. I requested confirmation
from the UT County Technical Assistance Service (CTAS). They confirmed
that the proposed HR resolution was illegal. Following a discussion
with CTAS, the Mayor's attorney wrote a letter to every Commissioner
saying: "I certainly feel that the Commission should not pass a
resolution that conflicts with State Law". When the resolution came up
at the August Commission meeting, Gary Farmer, the chair of the HR
Committee, immediately asked that action be postponed until the
September meeting. My understanding is that similar action was taken at
the September meeting (which I was unable to attend due to illness).
These postponements are nonsense. Commissioner Farmer and the other
sponsors of this resolution (Caylor, Burchfield and Kirby) should take
the advice of the attorneys and kill it.
At the September Education Committee meeting, School Superintendent,
Rob Britt, presented a detailed review of the results of the TCAP
tests. Nearly all Blount County Schools showed significant improvements
in their test scores. Clearly, Dr.Britt is working hard to instill a
culture where we carefully measure results in our schools. We
still have a way to go before our schools are competitive with the
best, nationally, but it is very gratifying to see the progress being
made. We wish Dr. Britt, his administrators, and most of all, the
teachers, continued success in these efforts.
The BAD
The State government has requested major
reductions in the budgets for next year. They have frozen hiring in
many departments. Knox County and the city of Knoxville have done the
same. Unfortunately, Blount County is not doing any of these things. In
fact, the County Commission approved a budget INCREASE to hire an
ADDITIONAL employee for Circuit Court Clerk Tom Hatcher's office, at
the September meeting. We are already facing
nearly a ten percent increase in taxes next year, because one-time
funds were used to pay for on-going salary expenses. Now the Commission
is adding to the problem. Most Commissioners don't seem to care about
the plight of the hard-working taxpayers of the County.
The UGLY
For more than a year, the Human Resources Committee has done its best
to avoid public discussion of a consultant's report on medical benefits
for county employees. You may recall that county employees enjoy an
excellent medical benefit plan that pays 90% of most expenses. County
employees pay nothing for these benefits. Family coverage is
available at just $100 per month. Most taxpayers are paying $300 to
$1000 per month or more for similar benefits. At the same time the
hard-working citizens are paying taxes to support the $16 million per
year cost of the current plan for county employees.
The consultant's study verified that Blount County employees are being
given an extraordinarily good deal. It says that the average municipal
employee in Tennessee pays nearly $100 per month for personal coverage
and more than $350 per month for family coverage.
At the Mayor's urging, the HR Committee finally scheduled a meeting in
early September to discuss the consultant's study. Unfortunately,
before any
discussion could take place, Bill Dunlap, Highway Superintendent
and Committee member, introduced a resolution to keep all employee
benefits the same in 2012. The resolution passed with only Mayor
Mitchell and Commissioner Mike Lewis voting NO.
(Click here to see the video clip)
None of this seemed to bother the other members of the
Committee: Sheriff Berrong, Highway Superintendent Dunlap, Registrar
Crisp,
David Murrell and Commissioners Farmer, Lail, and French. Thus, we have
locked a $16 million cost into next year's
budget with no serious discussion of any alternatives.
In a blatant display of how petty some County Commissioners have
become, the Commission voted against continuing to allow the Mayor to
allocate space in county buildings. For years, this has been a routine
action by the Commission, because having the Commission involved in
every space decision would be a waste of time and an exercise in
needless micromanagement. However, because they are displeased with the
Mayor's efforts to cut costs and reform Blount County government,
Commissioners Burchfield, Burkhalter, Carver, Farmer, Caylor, Helton,
Kirby, Lail, Gamble and Harrison voted AGAINST continuing to delegate
these responsibilites to the Mayor. This assures that the Commission
will now waste valuable time on office space decisions, instead of
addressing the serious budget problems that are likely to result in
another major tax increase being imposed on the hard pressed citizens
of the county. Are these the priorities YOU want from YOUR
Commissioners?
