After last evening’s Wicomico County Council meeting the council moved into a CLOSED work session. This isn’t particularly unusual, nor have we ever (I believe) questioned their actions before. Last night’s move was a little different.
The supposed purpose of the closed session was to discuss a personnel matter. This really isn’t true. The purpose of the closed session was to discuss a funding issue. Budget matters cannot be discussed in a closed session.
It appears that the county Health Department lost some grant funding. Because of this loss in revenue, they would have to lay off a particular employee UNLESS the county stepped in with more money.
How would I know this? Before you start accusing council members of telling tales out of school, that wasn’t the case. Councilman Bob Culver objected to the item being discussed in closed session. I overheard his discussion with both councilwoman Gail Bartkovich and county attorney Ed Baker. Both Bartkovich’s and Baker’s primary support for this being a “personnel matter” circled around the claim that a particular employee’s name would be used. SO WHAT!
Just because an employee’s name is said in a budget discussion does not give council the moral authority to hide behind closed doors. Frankly, I don’t believe the state’s I don’t care about the employee’s name. I don’t want to know it. Personally, I don’t think that they pay of each county employee should be public record. However, I also don’t think that the council should be meeting in closed session unless they HAVE TO.
I understand the reasoning behind discussing property acquisition in closed session. Ditto with litigation. Making such information public could potentially cost the taxpayers lots of money. I also understand the reasoning behind discussing CERTAIN personnel matters behind closed doors. If the council is hiring someone, a closed session promotes a free discussion. Closed interviews help protect a POTENTIAL employee who could lose his or her existing job if their current employee employer found out that they were shopping their services around. I also understand the legalities of discussing disciplinary matters behind closed doors. However, under our County Executive form of government, such personnel discussions are few and far between.
Is this much ado about nothing? I don’t think so. Does the Wicomico County Council wish to go down the same path visited by previous Salisbury City Councils? Anytime they didn’t want something discussed in public, they simply claimed that they were discussing an item that may potentially be litigated. Of course, we all know that ANYTHING could potentially be litigated.
If Mrs. Bartkovich and Mr. Baker wish to go down that path, we could even see legislation discussed behind closed doors. We know that the county’s personnel manual will have to be amended in order to accommodate County Executive Rick Pollitt’s “reorganization”. Why not do that behind closed doors. Simply cite this part of the Open Meetings Act:
Any other personnel matter that affects one or more specific individuals.
Why not? The county’s personnel manual is obviously a personnel matter. It definitely affects one or more specific individuals. Should this type of legislation be discussed in secret? I don’t think so. Yet, I would argue that there is a better argument for doing just that than what the council did Tuesday night.
Mrs. Bartkovich should be ashamed. Mr. Baker should hang his head for agreeing with her.
9 comments:
What's the deal with the two men with the weapons? Are they guarding our County Council members?
It's a joke. The photo is from a music video where they are supposed to be guarding the door to a "Secret Meeting".
While the photo is a joke, our county council holding meetings in secret is not!
Isn't the Council overstepping its boundaries by men meddling in personnel issues? First the Council and it's auditor were investigating employee time and truancy. Then council made layoff and employee re-allocating decisions. Now they are tooling with employee structuring. Now granted I believe that these actions are necessary, but the Council shouldn't be involved with personnel issues; that's an Executive's job. So what exactly is the Executive doing if the Council is trying to resolve personnel issues?
While I respect the Council's desire of and commitment to restructuring our County's workforce, I do not feel as though they have adequate working knowledge of tasks, procedures, job descriptions and the overall daily function and workload of county employees like the Executive and his staff do. Council tends to make "feel good" decisions in order to make cuts but they aren't always practical for efficiency.
Sounds like another violation of the sunshine law.
I heard that the Council is attempting to merge Planning and Zoning with Public Works, is there any truth to the rumor???
Anon 1201 -
Council isn't meddling in personnel issues. This was the reason given for closing the meeting and, as this post makes clear, I have a big problem with that. The purpose of the session was to decide if council would agree to fund some lost grant revenue to the Health Department.
The council did not make any lay-off or reallocation decisions. They made cuts to the salary accounts of various departments. It was the County Executive who decided how to implement those budget cuts.
As an example, employees from Planning & Zoning that would have been let go because of budget cuts were transferred to Public Works.
I didn't agree with all of the cuts make during the budget process. However, I bet that there are several council members with a better working knowledge of various departments than the Executive.
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Anon 1259 -
There is not attempt to merge departments that I am aware of. However, several people in P&Z that would have been laid off were transferred to Public Works.
HELLO....lack of transparency? Thats putting it mild lol
G.A. I guess you got stuck by a thorn from your rose bush. Funny when you get stepped on the council is at fault. Welcome to the world of a tax payer/county employe. The council has over stepped its bounds in many areas.
It is an understatement to say they do not have a grasp on the reality of what anyones job description is. Any employe that speaks up is told look for a career elsewhere. I know they only care about themselves. In recent months it has become obvious where they stand on retaining quality staff. One look at recent posts on this blog tells one the county is not what it used to be.
Rick Pollitt has become a ghost. I guess hiding in his office will make it all go away. So sad i had great hope this man would be what he portrayed himself to be to the voters. Rick needs a set of balls. We can not grow them for him. Rick must sit down to take a leak. Sorry big guy you have just not shown that grit it takes to lead a county into the future.
So bottom line is that we have a council that does what it damn well pleases and an Exec. that will let them do it.
We all better get on the same page or this county has not even begun to see troubled times. It is time for some of the new council members to step up and lead the way. I am sick of broken promises and lying politicians.
The inner city has cancer and it is spreading out into the county. Sad times indeed.
Anon 2243 -
Interesting comment. There are a few problems with your argument though.
First, I'd like you to cite exactly WHERE and WHEN the council has overstepped its bounds.
Second, they appropriate. Pollitt determines how to implement the budget within broad guidelines.
Third, any employee that "speaks up" is not in danger of the council doing anything to them because, again, only Pollitt has that authority.
Your comment about a council that does what it damn well pleases is totally false. Again, you haven't (nor can you) cite anytime that they have overstepped their authority under the charter.
Even with the issue I wrote about here, I'm not accusing them of that. I'm arguing that they should ALWAYS be on the side of greater transparency when there is any question as to whether they can meet in closed session.
I am also curious as to what "lies" and "broken promises" you are referring to. I'm not aware of ANY member of council falling into this category. That includes all of the Republicans AND Mrs. Sample-Hughes. I may agree with Sheree on little, but I'm not aware of her lying to the public. If any of them do, I'll be calling them out as soon as I'm aware of the situation.
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