DeKalb Has Twice as Many Staff as Gwinnett or Cobb
Decatur Metro | May 2, 2010 | 1:19 pmThis Sunday’s AJC gets their investigative mitts on a recent GSU study commissioned by the DeKalb County Commission, which states that DeKalb County has “too many managers and and almost double the number of employees as Cobb and Gwinnett counties.”
For instance…
DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis has a staff of 24, according to county records. An additional five positions in the CEO’s staff are vacant. And the county has 30 people working in its Board of Commissioners office, including DeKalb’s seven elected commissioners.
In contrast, Cobb County Manager David Hankerson has five other people working in his office…
The GSU report recommends eliminating over 900 DeKalb County positions, and the CEO’s office doesn’t necessarily disagree, noting in a release to the AJC that downsizing is a part of the recent reorg caused by a stunted economy. DeKalb Commissioners are also
Now of course, there’s always this caveat…
Beyond comparing DeKalb to similar governments, it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of county staffing, said GSU professor Greg Streib, one of the study’s authors. Officials from several national county government associations said there are no standards for government staffing because of their vast differences across the nation.
But that’s more of the caveat you throw out there when your county has, say, 10%-15% more employees with a similar population size. But twice as many?
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Wow.
Burrell must be channeling Vernon.
It is really pretty sad. Dekalb is laying off teachers and closing schools because they cannot afford them. The reality is that they have a bloated an innefficient governemnt that is squandering taxpayer dollars. The differences in the number of employees across the various departments is so great that there can really be no justification.
But the schools are a completely separate pot of money, right? More efficient spending by the county government won’t necessarily give the schools more money, right? That’s my understanding of how it works in Decatur City. I wish the City had more control in the case of Decatur because I think it is an enlightened manager of tax dollars and would be more responsive to citizens. In the case of DeKalb County, it sounds like there’s mismanagement of both pots of money. I hear that the School Superintendant is basically a good guy who let a few ambitious women make spending decisions without enough oversight.
Karass- Love you but go back and reread this sentance:
I hear that the School Superintendant is basically a good guy who let a few ambitious women make spending decisions without enough oversight.
There could have been ambitious men who spent without oversight too? Is that my error? But they aren’t the ones who made it into the newspaper. But, sure, men can be ambitious too. At least that’s what I hear.
Not an error, just the phrasing was a little cringeworthy!
Since I am possibly the expert on that in these parts….
I hear that the School Superintendant is basically a good guy who let a few ambitious women make spending decisions without enough oversight.
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Even if true, so what? Seems to me that oversight is kind of his job.
Agree. I’m just distinguishing between a leader who is corrupt and out for personal gain–that leader should be taken down no matter who does what–vs. a basically comptetent well-meaning leader who made the mistake of not noticing or not correctly assessing the misbehavior of employees. It’s a waste of a good educator–too bad for him and the school system that he didn’t stay in his former position. I imagine that those at fault were pretty smooth and disingenous about what they were doing.
School system and county government are separate entities, just like here, and saving money at the county level won’t put more money into the schools. However, saving money at the county level could affect property taxes and services.
I consider myself a liberal and a Democrat, but I don’t like to see money wasted. I think they could trim back the county bureaucracy without affecting services.
On Common Ground News (www.ocg.com) has an article on the large number of employees expected to leave this month.
Ellis’ executive assistant, Chief Operating Officer Keith Barker, said the administration is reviewing the study. But he argues it includes errors and says DeKalb cannot be fairly compared to Cobb and Gwinnett, which both outsource more services than DeKalb.
“We’re not going to discount or disregard this information, but we do not entirely agree with this information,” Barker said.
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So sayeth one of the members of the bloated staff. These people apparently intend to be judges in their own cause. How convenient. And note how they are still reviewing the study but have already identified flaws. Of course they have — downsizing a bloated staff leaves less opportunity for graft. It’s not like they’re spending their own money, after all.
And heaven forbid the possibility that the County Chief Operating Office might actually have more knowledge of how DeKalb County works than graduate students from Ga. State.
That’s “Officer”, not Office.
Woah now. Is someone saying that the only county with a CEO might have double the number of needed employees? I’m appalled sir. Appalled! I mean have you no respect for county government month!