According to the Oak Ridger, Anderson County Court Clerk Barry Pelizzari made a request to County Commission for 2.5 new employees, citing a 64% increase in the criminal court caseload from 2005-2007.
Juvenile Court has seen an increase of 42%. I don't know exactly what's driving the Criminal Court increase (a new DA, maybe?), but I suspect that a big part of the increase in Juvenile Court is that all traffic violations by juveniles are now referred to Juvenile Court, instead of to traffic court in the jurisdiction incurred (Oak Ridge, Clinton, Lake City, etc.)
If he knew he needed these people, why didn't he include them in his budget request?
I voted for this because I feel the demand is clearly there.
I agree that this should have been handled in the budget process. With that said, frankly, I'm tired of the Budget Committee telling office holders that they need not bother asking for additional funding because we don't have the money to improve service, yet year in and year out we continue to grow our undesignated fund.
It's important to keep in mind that we haven't grown this surplus by slowing the growth of county government. Rather, it's the result of continuously under estimating revenue, and over estimating expenses. We need to quit playing this game of smoke and mirrors, and start taking care of business.
I feel that people pay taxes expecting their money to be used to run government in an efficient yet effective manner. If we are consistently taking in more than we really need, we either need to start funding things correctly, or we need to lower taxes.
Woot Woot, tell it the way it is Dave-O! I think I would vote for you.
David:
As much as I agree with you let's get down to the entire issue starting back with the fee offices turning over control of their offices to the main office. They gave up all their rights and sold their souls to the devil. Yes, Barry Pellizarri was too busy pushing through Kathy Best's compensation plan. He should have included this in his budget but I fear he was afraid both would not fly. Sneaky way to do business. I do agree that clerks are needed but the ones that are there need to put in a full days work for a full days pay instead of taking personal calls, selling avon and having social hour. They need to be opening the clerk's office on time and reporting to work on time. Take care of the internal problems that the commission is not aware of before requesting more employees. It will take at the least 6 months to train a new employee and therefore will still delay the offices from running efficiently. My question is how did it get to this point? It did not happen overnight.
Now let's get to the $3mil in excess fees that have been turned over to the undesignated fund. I am tired of the lord mayor using my tax dollars as his personal savings account to use as a campaign issue. Health benefits costs have risen and care has fallen. You can make an error of maybe 500,000 to a mil but come on 3mil. Let's get real here someone is not running this county properly. Is it the accounting deptartment or the lord mayor padding everything of his while the other offices are cutting to bare bone and being hung out to dry? We need you people to make these idiots accountable and take more control. I am not referring to you personally but the entire body of commissioners. Quit letting this idiot play these games with our hard earned tax dollars.
PI,
I agree that the timing on this wasn't right, and maybe there were other reasons why this wasn't brought up previously. However, you know as well as I do that the Budget Committee has a habit of saying no, in the name of being conservative, while they let the money keep piling up, and I'm tired of it.
There may be issues in that office, but I'd say the same could be said to some extent about every office in the Courthouse. With that said, when I have letters from two Judges and the D.A. stating the need for this funding, I'm going to take that seriously. My job isn't to judge how he runs his office. That's for the voters to do. I am, however, tasked with adequately funding county government and, as I said before, we either need to do that or scale back and lower taxes.
I think a better solution would be to give control back to the fee offices. Let them handle their own offices instead of running their money through the main office. Let them turn in their excess fees when they have run their offices sufficiently. Take the accounting office and HR out of it like it was. Let each office have their own personel policy and conduct business accordingly. Give them their payroll back and let them take care of the vacations, hours and holidays. All this succeeded to do is give the lord mayor a stronger control of county government. The wolf in sheeps clothing who brought this proposition to the fee offices sold them a bad bill of goods for self serving reasons and now they no longer have full control of their offices. We elect them and feel they are responsible enough to run their office. Get the lord mayor and accounting out of the picture. They can't control what they have, let alone all the other offices.
I agree with you Ernestine, that's a good idea.
It is my understanding that the only way this can occur is for commission to change it. You have fee offices with no control. Stupid, isn't it? Wonder whose hair brain idea that was? E or Mr. Bolling do you have any ideas there? I believe that needs to be reversed and give the control back to the offices which in turn gives it back to the taxpayers. My understanding with this whole situation is the people on the second floor of the courthouse were trying to build their own little dynasty
I do agree that before you tax the citizens with more salaries you make sure you are getting a full day's work from the employees you have. That could solve half the problem internally.