Quoted from mikechristine1

And they have to pay extraordinarily high taxes to to live HUGE PENSIONS to teachers.  Teachers should be making pensions of about $25,000 a year, not almost $60,000   That is a pension which, pension for ONE person is twice the total household WORKING incomeS of those who are paying that pension.

I'm no friend of the teacher's union...

But my private company still offers me a pension, and if I end up working 30+ years, I may end up having a very nice pension (if the company doesn't eventually claim it fails due to under-funding, which is not likely today - but with a future possible economic crash, it is certainly reasonably possible)...

Anyway in the event I end up getting a good pension for my decades of service, I will want every dollar, not have the "redistributors" over-tax me to take most of it away.  (I pay a ridiculous amount of taxes for what I earn b/c I do not have a lot of deductions)

I guess what I'm saying here is that while the teachers union has gotten away with a lot of things, someone who was a teacher for decades deserves what she earned.

I do agree that pensions are a thing of the past, and my company no loner offers them for new employees...  And I think it makes sense for new public sector employees to not be offered a guaranteed system.  (As I said, while I have one today, I think there's a 50% chance in 20 years it will be taken over by the feds with very low payout...  meanwhile public sector employees will probably still get all their pensions funded by huge tax increases)

Quoted from JackBauer

I guess what I'm saying here is that while the teachers union has gotten away with a lot of things, someone who was a teacher for decades deserves what she earned.

I do agree that pensions are a thing of the past, and my company no loner offers them for new employees...  And I think it makes sense for new public sector employees to not be offered a guaranteed system.  (As I said, while I have one today, I think there's a 50% chance in 20 years it will be taken over by the feds with very low payout...  meanwhile public sector employees will probably still get all their pensions funded by huge tax increases)

Thanks for your observations -- the 2 KEY points are this --
#1)  my aunt contributed to her pension .. so all of her pension is NOT funded by the taxpayers
or tax increases.
#2) she began teaching at a time when teacher salaries were very low and (not just in my opinion) she
worked a lot harder than most ... GIVING up her lunch hour and working long hours after school to give  
extra help to students --- and  her students left her classroom well educated and trained.   She taught in
the Business Department and every year  Golub, GE, the state, and many other employers would call to see
if she had some graduating students who were looking to work as secretaries.   She demanded a lot of her
students and as a result .. they left her classroom  .. found jobs and succeeded as Administrative
Professionals.    And a number of her students went on to become business persons and professionals and
even a State Assemblyman.

The future is what is at stake.....no more guaranteed pensions for public sector jobs....this leads to podium pucks for the politicos.....phase them
out and quick......straight pay for straight work.....let the unions assist in the workers personal investments.....maybe they dont need unions, just private
investment companies they can go to????

Quoted from DemocraticVoiceOfReason

Thanks for your observations -- the 2 KEY points are this --
#1)  my aunt contributed to her pension .. so all of her pension is NOT funded by the taxpayers
or tax increases.
#2) she began teaching at a time when teacher salaries were very low and (not just in my opinion) she
worked a lot harder than most ... GIVING up her lunch hour and working long hours after school to give  
extra help to students --- and  her students left her classroom well educated and trained.   She taught in
the Business Department and every year  Golub, GE, the state, and many other employers would call to see
if she had some graduating students who were looking to work as secretaries.   She demanded a lot of her
students and as a result .. they left her classroom  .. found jobs and succeeded as Administrative
Professionals.    And a number of her students went on to become business persons and professionals and
even a State Assemblyman.

Uh, again, what the hell do you know.   If she worked that long ago, she was Tier 1.  Guess you don't know that Tier 1 did NOT pay into the system   We are intelligent people on this board DV, we know that the retirement plans are for the public sector.  Someone told me though that they thought that a very very long time ago, members contributed something, but even IF that was true, the dollars she contributed would NOT have come anywhere CLOSE to what the taxpayers are shelling out.  

Let's use 3% as an example.  Now let's use a salary of $50,000.   If someone contributed 3% of that salary, that would be $1,500 per year.  Over 43 years that totals up to a paltry $64,000.  Now, remember, that when I used the example of $50,000 as a salary, there is no way a teacher in 1960 or 70 would have been making that, so maybe 3% of $30,000 in one year, and $35,000 in another.

So, dont' try to tell more of your fairy tales.  The taxpayers foot the bill for 99% of her pension (if she ever contributed).  Then, you have to add ON TOP OF THAT, the health insurance for life!  

Once again, you are proving your ingorance of reality.  The taxpayers CANNOT afford this anymore.  If YOU prefer that the common working people foot the bill for the millionaires and all the non-essential niceties, why don't you move to some socialist country?  

Your lack of knowledge on how high taxes are and how people are suffering financially are reflective only of someone who does not pay any taxes.  


CAPITAL REGION — Running school districts is expensive enough; covering the cost of pensions is reaching crisis levels.
While the problem has been growing for years, recent reports and the stresses of the long recession have brought the level of these long-term obligations into sharper focus.
Annual contributions to the New York State and Local Employee Retirement System are expected to spike for the 2011-12 school year, prompting some local school districts to create special reserve funds to cushion the blow to taxpayers.
Districts are prohibited from setting up reserves to pay for the New York State Teacher Retirement System, but reserves can be set aside for non-teacher personnel who are paid pensions from the state retirement system, including custodians, secretaries and other district employees.
The state-mandated contribution for the employee retirement system has risen from 7.9 percent of payroll for the 2009-10 school year to 11.9 percent for 2010-11 and is expected to jump to 16.3 percent for the 2011-12 school year.
Earlier this month the Greater Johnstown School District’s board of education voted to put $1 million, of its estimated $5.2 million in general reserves, into a fund dedicated to helping to pay for the district's annual pension contribution for its non-teacher employees.
Johnstown Business Manager Alice Sise said school districts contribute a state-mandated percentage of their employees’ salaries each year to the state employee retirement system. Johnstown’s annual contribution to the retirement system is expected to nearly double from $280,000 for the 2009-10 school year to $430,000 for 2011-12.
“And it's just going to keep going up,” Sise said. “This fund is like having a savings account you have to buy a car or a house; we’re just segregating the money. I think you’re going to see other districts with healthy [reserves] do this, if they have the money.”
Robert Hanlon, a spokesman for the Scotia-Glenville Central School District, said his district created a reserve fund for its employee retirement system contributions in 2009. He said since then the reserve has grown to $1.5 million, slightly more than the $1.47 million the district has in its general fund reserves. The district hasn’t used the reserve fund yet, but plans to do so for the 2011-12 school budget when the big increase is expected.
“The reason we need it is to fund rate increases for the pension system. Schools need this hedge because we can’t increase taxes that much in our community,” Hanlon said.
Mohonasen Central School District Assistant Superintendent for Business Denise Swezey said her district established a reserve to pay for the pension costs in 2009. She said the fund has about $500,000 in it as of June of this year, but she may be forced to dip into it before the end of the 2010-11 school year. She said she’ll look to use the funds for the 2011-12 budget.
“I’m hoping to utilize that fund so I won’t have to increase my budget. I’m anticipating my employee retirement costs are going to almost double for next year,” she said.
RESOURCES THIN
Not every district has the money to set up a reserve. Greater Amsterdam School District Business Manager Roger Seward said his district has used most of its reserves in recent budgets to help keep its property taxes from skyrocketing. Amsterdam only has about $2.4 million remaining in its general fund balance, its reserve of unspent tax revenues. He said reserving money presents its own risks and cautioned that in the past, the mandated pension contributions have fluctuated from as high as 22 percent of payroll down to nearly zero, depending on the performance of the stock market and the general economy.
“We’re not in that position where we have, right now, any excess,” he said. “If we get a zero or 5 percent decrease in state aid and we’re trying to maintain existing programming, I don't think taking money and setting it aside for some future thing is going to be a viable option at the present.”
Sise said the school board has the power to abolish the reserve for the employee retirement contributions just as it created it, without a public referendum. She admits the reserve fund has no real advantage over keeping the money in the general fund balance — investment rules for both are the same — but the money in the dedicated reserve is shielded from year-to-year spending unless the reserve is abolished.
New York state limits the amount of money a district can hold in general reserves to 4 percent of its total annual budget. In recent years, state auditors have routinely admonished Johnstown for exceeding the 4 percent limit, but there has never been any penalty for the district.
Sise said her school board is wary the state could begin enforcing stricter limits on general reserves, providing another reason to set up the dedicated reserve fund.
She said the board is also concerned about Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo’s proposal to institute a property tax cap, since the annual increases in pension costs alone could exceed any proposed cap on property taxes.
“Nothing that’s happened over the last two years is similar to anything that’s happened over the last 10, so we’re trying to get our district in a good position going forward,” she said.
Dave Weiser, chief business officer and district clerk for the Schenectady City School District, said his district is considering the creation of several new reserve funds, including one for employee retirement system costs. He said Schenectady can use the reserve funds to keep its fund balance from exceeding the 4 percent cap set by the state.
“As the rates are increasing fairly quickly for the retirement systems this would allow us to mitigate some of that increase using our savings from previous years,” he said.
few options
Many school district administrators have been frustrated by state laws prohibiting reserve funds for contributions to the New York State Teacher Retirement System or for the cost of providing health insurance to retired workers. State law requires school districts and municipalities to provide health insurance for retired employees and prevents them from setting up reserve funds to help pay those costs.
Seward said Amsterdam faces about a $100 million liability for its retired employees’ health care costs over the next 30 years, but can’t set any money aside to pay for it. He said if the state had allowed school districts to establish reserve funds for all of its post-employee benefits years ago, it might have helped mitigate some of the financial problems facing schools.
“We've got this big liability out there that is funded on a pay-as-you-go basis,” he said. “You get accused of not doing long-term planning, but then again you have no tools to make those long-term plans.”
Sise said several years ago Johnstown attempted to reserve $2 million in a fund to be used to pay for teacher retirement costs and health insurance for retired workers but was ordered to dissolve the fund and put the money back into general reserves after an investigation by the state Attorney General's Office.
School districts’ contributions to the teachers retirement system are usually much higher than for the employee retirement system and face similar percentage increases.
Swezey said the percentage contribution of payroll for the teachers retirement system has gone from 6.9 percent for the 2009-10 school year to 8.2 percent for 2010-11 and is expected to increase to 11.5 percent for 2011-12.
“You're talking millions of dollars,” she said.
For the 2010-11 school year, Mohonasen has budgeted about $400,000 for the employee retirement system and about $1.4 million for its teachers retirement system.
Steve VanHoesen, the director of government relations for the New York State Association of School Business Officials, said the New York state comptroller, in consultation with his organization, proposed legislation to allow districts to create reserve funds to help pay for teacher retirement costs and post employment health insurance costs, but the Legislature didn’t enact the comptroller’s proposals.
“They shot down both proposals. I think the idea of expanding school district’s authority to use taxpayer money to establish reserves really isn't well understood a lot of members of the Legislature,” he said. “I think they were acting to public perception that the districts shouldn't have too much authority to reserve and shouldn't be using taxpayer money to create more reserves.”
________________________________________

Quoted Text

EDITORIALS
In Sch’dy, some truth behind legal mumbo jumbo

    It’s not easy reading between the lines of Schenectady Corporation Counsel L. John Van Norden’s explanation regarding the City’s Council’s resolution ending “handshake deals” for non-unionized city employees.
    Van Norden, who was on extended sick leave when the resolution was written a few weeks ago, told the council in one of his fi rst orders of business upon returning that their legislation was flawed and has the potential to cause legal headaches for a litany of reasons. Among them: It was vague; it was technically fl awed in its use of the term “employees” to refer to department managers whom, he said, should have been referred to as “officers”; it presumed that the council can overturn an arrangement made by a mayor; and it failed to recognize that an oral promise can have the same legal standing as a written one.
    Van Norden further says that the benefi ts packages for city managers are a mess — some managers get benefits that others don’t, some of the benefits are codified, while others were simply promised orally as enticements to get unionized employees to join management ranks. And some of the codifi ed benefi ts, which are tied to what CSEA managers get (like the amount of vacation time that can be accrued), have changed over the years. But some city employees may not even know it.
    Being a lawyer, Van Norden thinks all of these issues need to be clarified and spelled out for the few managers in today’s work force they apply to, as well as those in the future. And he’s probably right, except that doing so will take a long time and probably cost a bundle of money. And that’s even if the city doesn’t wind up getting sued.
    Van Norden has his own issue over the lifetime health insurance he says he was promised by his department head when he was fi rst hired, then denied when he briefly left the city’s employ a decade ago. But he says he has no interest in contesting it, and denies any conflict of interest in his position. ..............>>>>.........>>>>..........http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r02601&AppName=1

Again, isn't an oral agreement AFTER a written contract illegal? Unless the contract is amended, I thought any other handshake promises were void?

The Mayor gave promises to people which were never agreed upon or reviewed by the taxpayers or the Council. Yes, the Mayor has authority, but not an authority to break the parole evidence rule. What's VanNorden's argument?

The Gazetto again defending the indefensible? Keep raping the taxpayers-Bravo from the People's Gazetto!

     None of this crap will change until the 35 year death grip of DEMS in City Hall is ended this year. All they do is defend each other and give each other awards.

Quoted from mikechristine1

Uh, again, what the hell do you know.   If she worked that long ago, she was Tier 1.  Guess you don't know that Tier 1 did NOT pay into the system   We are intelligent people on this board DV, we know that the retirement plans are for the public sector.  Someone told me though that they thought that a very very long time ago, members contributed something, but even IF that was true, the dollars she contributed would NOT have come anywhere CLOSE to what the taxpayers are shelling out.  

Let's use 3% as an example.  Now let's use a salary of $50,000.   If someone contributed 3% of that salary, that would be $1,500 per year.  Over 43 years that totals up to a paltry $64,000.  Now, remember, that when I used the example of $50,000 as a salary, there is no way a teacher in 1960 or 70 would have been making that, so maybe 3% of $30,000 in one year, and $35,000 in another.

So, dont' try to tell more of your fairy tales.  The taxpayers foot the bill for 99% of her pension (if she ever contributed).  Then, you have to add ON TOP OF THAT, the health insurance for life!  

Once again, you are proving your ingorance of reality.  The taxpayers CANNOT afford this anymore.  If YOU prefer that the common working people foot the bill for the millionaires and all the non-essential niceties, why don't you move to some socialist country?  

Your lack of knowledge on how high taxes are and how people are suffering financially are reflective only of someone who does not pay any taxes.  


CAPITAL REGION — Running school districts is expensive enough; covering the cost of pensions is reaching crisis levels.
While the problem has been growing for years, recent reports and the stresses of the long recession have brought the level of these long-term obligations into sharper focus.
Annual contributions to the New York State and Local Employee Retirement System are expected to spike for the 2011-12 school year, prompting some local school districts to create special reserve funds to cushion the blow to taxpayers.
Districts are prohibited from setting up reserves to pay for the New York State Teacher Retirement System, but reserves can be set aside for non-teacher personnel who are paid pensions from the state retirement system, including custodians, secretaries and other district employees.
The state-mandated contribution for the employee retirement system has risen from 7.9 percent of payroll for the 2009-10 school year to 11.9 percent for 2010-11 and is expected to jump to 16.3 percent for the 2011-12 school year.
Earlier this month the Greater Johnstown School District’s board of education voted to put $1 million, of its estimated $5.2 million in general reserves, into a fund dedicated to helping to pay for the district's annual pension contribution for its non-teacher employees.
Johnstown Business Manager Alice Sise said school districts contribute a state-mandated percentage of their employees’ salaries each year to the state employee retirement system. Johnstown’s annual contribution to the retirement system is expected to nearly double from $280,000 for the 2009-10 school year to $430,000 for 2011-12.
“And it's just going to keep going up,” Sise said. “This fund is like having a savings account you have to buy a car or a house; we’re just segregating the money. I think you’re going to see other districts with healthy [reserves] do this, if they have the money.”
Robert Hanlon, a spokesman for the Scotia-Glenville Central School District, said his district created a reserve fund for its employee retirement system contributions in 2009. He said since then the reserve has grown to $1.5 million, slightly more than the $1.47 million the district has in its general fund reserves. The district hasn’t used the reserve fund yet, but plans to do so for the 2011-12 school budget when the big increase is expected.
“The reason we need it is to fund rate increases for the pension system. Schools need this hedge because we can’t increase taxes that much in our community,” Hanlon said.
Mohonasen Central School District Assistant Superintendent for Business Denise Swezey said her district established a reserve to pay for the pension costs in 2009. She said the fund has about $500,000 in it as of June of this year, but she may be forced to dip into it before the end of the 2010-11 school year. She said she’ll look to use the funds for the 2011-12 budget.
“I’m hoping to utilize that fund so I won’t have to increase my budget. I’m anticipating my employee retirement costs are going to almost double for next year,” she said.
RESOURCES THIN
Not every district has the money to set up a reserve. Greater Amsterdam School District Business Manager Roger Seward said his district has used most of its reserves in recent budgets to help keep its property taxes from skyrocketing. Amsterdam only has about $2.4 million remaining in its general fund balance, its reserve of unspent tax revenues. He said reserving money presents its own risks and cautioned that in the past, the mandated pension contributions have fluctuated from as high as 22 percent of payroll down to nearly zero, depending on the performance of the stock market and the general economy.
“We’re not in that position where we have, right now, any excess,” he said. “If we get a zero or 5 percent decrease in state aid and we’re trying to maintain existing programming, I don't think taking money and setting it aside for some future thing is going to be a viable option at the present.”
Sise said the school board has the power to abolish the reserve for the employee retirement contributions just as it created it, without a public referendum. She admits the reserve fund has no real advantage over keeping the money in the general fund balance — investment rules for both are the same — but the money in the dedicated reserve is shielded from year-to-year spending unless the reserve is abolished.
New York state limits the amount of money a district can hold in general reserves to 4 percent of its total annual budget. In recent years, state auditors have routinely admonished Johnstown for exceeding the 4 percent limit, but there has never been any penalty for the district.
Sise said her school board is wary the state could begin enforcing stricter limits on general reserves, providing another reason to set up the dedicated reserve fund.
She said the board is also concerned about Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo’s proposal to institute a property tax cap, since the annual increases in pension costs alone could exceed any proposed cap on property taxes.
“Nothing that’s happened over the last two years is similar to anything that’s happened over the last 10, so we’re trying to get our district in a good position going forward,” she said.
Dave Weiser, chief business officer and district clerk for the Schenectady City School District, said his district is considering the creation of several new reserve funds, including one for employee retirement system costs. He said Schenectady can use the reserve funds to keep its fund balance from exceeding the 4 percent cap set by the state.
“As the rates are increasing fairly quickly for the retirement systems this would allow us to mitigate some of that increase using our savings from previous years,” he said.
few options
Many school district administrators have been frustrated by state laws prohibiting reserve funds for contributions to the New York State Teacher Retirement System or for the cost of providing health insurance to retired workers. State law requires school districts and municipalities to provide health insurance for retired employees and prevents them from setting up reserve funds to help pay those costs.
Seward said Amsterdam faces about a $100 million liability for its retired employees’ health care costs over the next 30 years, but can’t set any money aside to pay for it. He said if the state had allowed school districts to establish reserve funds for all of its post-employee benefits years ago, it might have helped mitigate some of the financial problems facing schools.
“We've got this big liability out there that is funded on a pay-as-you-go basis,” he said. “You get accused of not doing long-term planning, but then again you have no tools to make those long-term plans.”
Sise said several years ago Johnstown attempted to reserve $2 million in a fund to be used to pay for teacher retirement costs and health insurance for retired workers but was ordered to dissolve the fund and put the money back into general reserves after an investigation by the state Attorney General's Office.
School districts’ contributions to the teachers retirement system are usually much higher than for the employee retirement system and face similar percentage increases.
Swezey said the percentage contribution of payroll for the teachers retirement system has gone from 6.9 percent for the 2009-10 school year to 8.2 percent for 2010-11 and is expected to increase to 11.5 percent for 2011-12.
“You're talking millions of dollars,” she said.
For the 2010-11 school year, Mohonasen has budgeted about $400,000 for the employee retirement system and about $1.4 million for its teachers retirement system.
Steve VanHoesen, the director of government relations for the New York State Association of School Business Officials, said the New York state comptroller, in consultation with his organization, proposed legislation to allow districts to create reserve funds to help pay for teacher retirement costs and post employment health insurance costs, but the Legislature didn’t enact the comptroller’s proposals.
“They shot down both proposals. I think the idea of expanding school district’s authority to use taxpayer money to establish reserves really isn't well understood a lot of members of the Legislature,” he said. “I think they were acting to public perception that the districts shouldn't have too much authority to reserve and shouldn't be using taxpayer money to create more reserves.”
________________________________________

MikeChristine ---   I will tell you this in the most simple way that I possibly can ... I don't know who you
are or who you think you are ...  Your over the top attacks on me and more so -- on my family are
uncalled for and show how low you are as a person.     I repeat what I said before Christmas -- I do not
like you ... I don't want to ever meet you or have anything to do with you.    

Do everyone a favor -- stop bothering me .. stop asking me questions ..  I will NOT respond to you ever
again.  I will not even read your posts ever again.    

Yes you will - and you know it.  You thrive on this (rap

DV just can't handle the truth.  The truth that overly generous pensions are going to bankrupt us.

And he calls it an attack on his family.  I merely use information that, BY LAW, is PUBLIC information.  

Notice DV REFUSED to acknowledge that he is wrong, his aunt NEVER paid into pension, Tier 1 was non-contributory.   Thus his aunt's FULL, 100% very high pension is paid 100% by the taxpayers.  

It's NOT an "attack" it's MERELY telling the truth of use of taxpayer money.  When taxpayers money is used, it IS the business of the taxpayers,

Quoted Text

4. Authorizing signing of MOU between SPD and USMS for reimbursement of
OT in the amount of $32,000.00 – Asst. Chief Seber

\


The above appears in the agenda for the committee meeting for the City of Schenectady Monday, @ 5:30 PM  January 3, 2011.

Here we go again?

Quoted Text

SCHENECTADY
City’s unwritten promises, deals detailed in secret list to council
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

    The City Council is fi nally getting a look at the tangled web of unwritten deals and promises made to city employees by city leaders over the years.
    Corporation Counsel L. John Van Norden has made a list that details exactly what the city is facing, in terms of costly promises that may never have been approved by the council.
    “I have a good list of who has a contract, who thinks they have a contract and why, who might have a contract and who doesn’t have a contract,” he told the council Monday.
    He sent out the information in a confi dential e-mail.
    He also urged the council not to act unilaterally. The council tried to put an end to all unwritten deals through one resolution, but Van Norden rejected the wording, saying it was unconstitutionally vague.
    After gathering data on every unwritten deal, he said the council should find individualized solutions. ............>>>>.....................>>>>...................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r01704&AppName=1

Am I following this right...the attorney for the City has all the unwritten deals now written down so they can be upheld by the Council?!? Let's try that again, all the deals which the taxpayers have been paying for for years and are included in the budget, but have never been approved or seen by anyone.....are now going to be seen..

Seriously, this is so blatantly backhanded it's a joke!! Taxpayers have been paying for verbal agreements which have never seen pen to paper ever and the City attorney is upholding them. How does anyone get a City job and decide to not write down their pay, their benefits, etc?! Doesn't it all need to be written down as the taxpayers pay their checks? Is anyone accountable for this!

Quoted from rachel72

Am I following this right...the attorney for the City has all the unwritten deals now written down so they can be upheld by the Council?!? Let's try that again, all the deals which the taxpayers have been paying for for years and are included in the budget, but have never been approved or seen by anyone.....are now going to be seen..

Seriously, this is so blatantly backhanded it's a joke!! Taxpayers have been paying for verbal agreements which have never seen pen to paper ever and the City attorney is upholding them. How does anyone get a City job and decide to not write down their pay, their benefits, etc?! Doesn't it all need to be written down as the taxpayers pay their checks? Is anyone accountable for this!

Technically, if it is included in the budget - the funding of the overtime - then the city council  approved it.
The line item for overtime is not broken down to which individuals will get what amount -- but it has always
concerned me that  such high amounts of overtime were - in effect - preapproved.     The Police Department
was understaffed for years ... but the overtime  was outrageously high.    Common sense tells you -- if you
are understaffed and are paying high amounts in overtime ---- fill the unfilled staff positions to reduce the
over time.    

Quoted from rachel72

Am I following this right...the attorney for the City has all the unwritten deals now written down so they can be upheld by the Council?!? Let's try that again, all the deals which the taxpayers have been paying for for years and are included in the budget, but have never been approved or seen by anyone.....are now going to be seen..

Seriously, this is so blatantly backhanded it's a joke!! Taxpayers have been paying for verbal agreements which have never seen pen to paper ever and the City attorney is upholding them. How does anyone get a City job and decide to not write down their pay, their benefits, etc?! Doesn't it all need to be written down as the taxpayers pay their checks? Is anyone accountable for this!

Do you think that maybe, just maybe, VanNorden is also a recipient of these 'unwritten deals'? hmmmmmmmmmmmm
Looks like he came off his 'sick leave at camp' just in time, huh?