AJC: DeKalb Police Wrote Fewer Tickets
Decatur Metro | December 21, 2010 | 10:02 amIn response to budget cutbacks in DeKalb earlier this year that resulted in furlough days, no pay on holidays and no merit increases for DeKalb Police receiving no pay on holidays and no merit increases, the DeKalb Officers blog let it be known that the force would be writing fewer tickets this year in protest.
According to this morning’s AJC, officers followed through on the threat. From May to November, DeKalb Police wrote 33% fewer tickets, costing the County “more than $5 million in revenue”.
DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis’ budget for next year eliminates furlough days for police, but is asking for a second straight year for a property tax increase to cover costs. The County Commission didn’t like that idea last year. We’ll have to see how things play out this year.
The police are serving a core government function and all, but when it comes to comp, Dekalb says screw ’em. There’s a limited amount of money, and what the County has, it needs to spend greasing the pockets of administrators. See here:
http://www.ajc.com/news/dekalb/dekalb-oks-76-000-780298.html
Tyson’s raise is last week’s news, but the amount is not — it’s 240k, not 238k as initially reported. Now even if one thinks that is justified, try justifying this additional news:
— She gets a $2,000/month expense allowance FOR WHICH SHE IS NOT REQUIRED TO SUBMIT RECEIPTS. I ask you, on what planet does that make any sense? For those of you in the private sector, try taking a business trip, returning home and demanding a $2,000 reimbursement without receipts. Now try doing that EVERY MONTH.
— They gave her an 18 month contract. Seriously. So she will collect this outrageous salary for months even after the school hired a permanent replacement. The board also voted to pay the permanent super at least $240k. Nothing like having redundant $240k employees on the payroll!
Oh, and then there’s this:
http://www.ajc.com/news/dekalb/dekalb-promotions-carry-40dekalb-promotions-carry-40-784344.html?cxtype=ynews_rss
What the heck is a “Geographic Information Systems” director? Don’t know, but we could not possibly fill that position under $100k in salary. No raise for police, $6k raise for this person. But hey, at least that is only HALF the raise given to the Airport Manager. Keeping those corporate jets on schedule at PDK is clearly worth a $13k raise. Merry Christmas Dekalb Co administrators!
You should keep in mind that the school superintendent’s salary is set by the Board of Education. The Police Department’s budget is set by the County Commission. These are two separate and distinct boards.
Whoops — the new super, when hired, will make at least $275k. Not $240k as I stated above. Sorry, did not mean to imply the school board was exercising even that small bit of common sense and fiscal restraint.
I wonder what affect this has had on doughnut sales?
OK, one last thing. I am sorry to hijack the thread, but this stuff is just so outrageous. I came across this:
http://dunwoodytalk.blogspot.com/2010/12/real-reason-ramona-tyson-wanted-more.html
As mentioned in a previous post this increase is more than just a pay raise. When a teacher retires they get 2% of the average of their two highest years as a retirement pension, per year. She has 22 years in now, so let’s go with 23 years of service. 23 times 2 is 46. 46% of her new average is $110,400 per year retirement. Prior to the raise her annual retirement was $75,900 per year. In one week her annual retirement was increased $34,500 a year.
Just curious — anyone else out there receive a $34,500 increase in retirement pay last week? Anyone? Bueller?
What the hell is retirement pay?
A pension, as I understand it. they have a defined benefit system, so she’ll collect over $100 grand/year after she calls it quits at the school.
What’s a “pension”?
It really is outrageous. This is tax money. This is money earned by us and confiscated by the government for it’s pleasure with no accountability. While I certainly believe some public positions should be paid to compete with the private sector market to be attractive to qualified candidates, and even more so our police- there has to be accountability to the highest degree and I expect them to act as professionals. I want to see receipts – she works for me- not vice-versa. Freaking entitlement mentality. I’ll bet she’s a piece of work with an attitude to match.
The ultimate in bait-n-switch threads!
Go ahead DM, give in and change the op to something about the board of education. It’s ok, you can try again next week.
Keep in mind that the DeKalb County school budget is not funded with tax dollars from residents of the City of Decatur. The rest of the County budget does include our tax money, but not the school system.
When I argue that point, the response is typically…”Yeah, but it’s the principle of the thing!”. Kind of like toys in fast food meals: “Do you buy kid’s meals?”, response: “No, but it’s the principle of the thing!”.
What I’ve learned from this is that other’s principles should be taken into consideration when I make a decision. If I vote this way, what will that other person think of my decision?
{Do I need my sarcasm disclaimer?}
Correct, and (obviously) known, but I do pay DeKalb taxes (as does alot of my family). She is a public servant. Period.
Same here. Not everyone who reads this blog is within the Decatur city limits. At any rate, I realize this was a bit of a threadjack and apologized in advance for it. I had just read those AJC articles and seeing DM’s post brought me to the boiling point re: Dekalb government, including but not limitesd to the school board.
Aren’t the actions of the Dekalb police sort of self-defeating? They don’t get raises, but they also reduce the amount of revenue going to Dekalb County by $5 million. So that reduction in county revenue would put them in even more financial jeopardy the following year.
I’m not judging their discontent, but questioning their actions. If I hadn’t gotten a raise last year, I wouldn’t have reacted by trying to make my employer lose revenue.
Actually this 5 million in tickets lost resulted in the recorders court being able to go after the more than 25 million in outstanding tickets and warrants resulting in over 7 million being collected that wouldnt have been collected had the officers not done this. So actually the strike resulted in the courts bringing in a ton and clearing a lot of old warrants and probation violations up.