SCHENECTADY Move would end ‘handshake deals’ Charter proposal aimed at cleaning up labor practices BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter
Schenectady residents will be asked to change the city’s charter this November to put an end to “handshake deals” like the one that nearly gave Fire Chief Robert Farstad a much sweeter pension. The revision would give the City Council sole authority over all employment contracts — even those not negotiated by a union. But Corporation Counsel L. John Van Norden thinks the revision might also get rid of the management scourge known as “past practice.” Employees use “past practice” to keep a perk that was never authorized but had been allowed some time in the past, usually by a supervisor. It’s often discovered years later, when a manager tries to enforce the rules and employees say the rules have changed. “Sometimes without the council knowing about it, without the mayor knowing about it, without the corporation counsel knowing about it, and then you get this surprise,” Van Norden said. In the past year, this system forced the city to keep paying the salary of a police officer who could not perform his job because his driver’s license had been revoked. Long ago, another officer had been given desk work after losing his license, and so the city was forced to do it again. Past practice also forced the city to pay buyouts to several managers who had saved up sick time, even though they had not been hired under a contract allowing them to cash out their sick time when they left. Van Norden thinks the charter revision would put an end to all past practice precedents by making it clear that supervisors and department heads do not have the authority to offer any perks. “With the revision, if you don’t get council approval, you do not have the authority to make that decision, to make that policy,” he said. ..............>>>>.................>>>>......................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r01101&AppName=1
Quote"WITH THE REVISION,IF YOU DON'T GET COUNCIL APPROVAL,YOU DO NOT HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO MAKE THAT DECISION,TO MAKE THAT POLICY", he said (VAN NORDEN). Question: Does this mean that despite the revision that it still could be done as long as you have the council's approval? Does this not defeat the revisions intent? Unless I read this wrong or miscoprehened it, this would seem so. A law but it being open to interpetation as one deems fit for ones agenda. So now we can also forsee a situation, if it not has been done already, where if one knows they cannot cash out their sick leave, they merely feign an illness of ones choice, to use it up, Then upon a return announce their intent to retire. Thereby "cashing" it out in this manner.
They will find another bodypart to shake, ehh Senders?
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
Recent historyFrom at least 1998, a former Commodities Trading Advisor (CTA) of fourteen years Walter Bubien [7] AKA Burien - CAFR1 [8], and a federal auditor of thirty years Gerald Klatt who died on his birthday July 11th 2004 as noted in the SS death index who was from Tucson, AZ [9] have made specific and detailed claims upon showings seen and from referencing within the now 184,000 local government CAFRs, AFRs and other Federal audit reports such as; Audit of the IRS [10]; US Treasury Audit of Bank derivative holdings (tables 1, 2, 3 on pages 22, 23, 24 show that the top three banks were trading and holding over 150 trillion dollars worth of derivatives, apparently in primarily government accounts)[11]; US Treasury Audit of Bank Mortgage holdings [12]; Federal Consolidated Financial Statements [13]; CAFR for the Federal Reserve [14]; local Government's CAFR[15].
How many governments exist in the United States? The 1997 Census of Government says it best... "There were 87,504 governmental units in the United States as of June 1997. In addition to the Federal Government and the 50 state governments, there were 87,453 units of local government. Of these, 39,044 are general purpose local governments - 3,043 county governments and 36,001 sub-county general purpose governments, including 13,726 school district governments and 34,683 special district governments."
Some have called these the "2nd set of books", but as Mr. Burien says, the CAFR is "the book" with the budget being a section contained therein. Their assessments of government assets, holdings and investment supporting globalism, ownership by government investment "for profit" and government's international investments profits, significantly enhanced with the use of the now 600 trillion dollar international derivatives markets with government investments strategically placed for profit from free trade, war, commodity market, stock market, International investment movement and extreme price volatility is created by these massive moves by "institutional government funds" speculators scattered around the globe manipulating the market either deliberately or by volume.
Since 1998, with the CAFR being brought to the attention of the public by the efforts of Walter Burien and Gerald Klatt [16] the Government Accounting Standards Board, a private organization whose guidelines for CAFR accounting are followed by local governments,[17] starting with transmittal letter 31 in 1999 and now up to transmittal letter 46 as of 2007) made changes. This resulted in claims that such changes are calculated steps to hide from the general public's view, massive domestic and international wealth; investment assets and authority "enterprise funds" all of which could be seen more visibly outlined in the combined financial columns of 1999 and previous CAFRs which required a showing of gross totals. The modifications in effect transitioned the accounting from a showing of gross totals to a showing of "net" totals as now noted in the CAFRs. Anyone who operates a business knows there is a very big difference between final figures expressed as "gross" or "net" accounting. These changes are being done with virtual secrecy due to the money involved and because of virtually no media attention on these issues.
While a budget might indicate that a specific government or agency has financial trouble and debt, because of excess spending or mismanagement within the select grouping of "general fund" accounts presented, the CAFR may indicate, that overall, the same government entity, has many facets possessing large holdings and income considerably greater than what is shown in a budget report or the "general fund" alone. A few examples from recent history include, Jesse Ventura's returning 1.8 billion dollars (from the 8 billion targeted by him) of the government surpluses to voters as governor of Minnesota. Another example, in 1994, Orange County California government lost about $1.5 Billion on investments in the now massive derivative market and claimed they needed to declare bankruptcy per their general purpose budget even while holding several billion(about 11.3 billion) in profitable holdings in their investment portfolios as seen in the CAFR. The University of Kentucky's holdings of 85% of CHA Health [3] insurance stock was exposed in 2005 in the Lexington Herald Leader newspaper when CHA was sold to a rival firm [4] as part of the UK president's effort to raise a billion dollars to fund becoming a "top 20" research university an ongoing effort; to name a few examples.
A more recent example of CAFR mention is when a congressman from Oregon Rep. Bruce Hanna in 2010 during general session when the floor was discussing what to do about the state's 3.5 billion dollar budget shortfall (fire employees, cut back on services, close state parks), stood up with the cover page from the state of Oregon CAFR in his hand and pointed out that in less than a few minutes he found 3.5 billion dollars to satisfy the state shortfall and poof, no shortfall when the dots were connected between the state CAFR and the previous selective presentation of the State general purpose operating budget.. This video is State Rep. Bruce Hanna, openly exposing the Oregon State CAFR surplus to the Oregon Legislature. A must see! - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ8YhJyxPQo and then a comment on the same from the Oregon Republican party site - http://www.oregonrepublicanparty.org/node/291
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
The city of Schenectady is moving forward with plans to standardize all benefits given to administrators in the wake of the Robert Farstad flap, when the former fire chief was allowed to collect up to $126,000 in overtime when chiefs are typically not given such benefits. The City Council will conduct a public hearing on July 11 on new benefits afforded to assistant police chiefs. The change involves slightly increasing assistant chief salaries in return for taking away payouts for accumulated sick leave and other previous carrots such as longevity pay and overtime, said Director of Administration John Paolino. The new employment requirements will now be a part of city code, hence the need for a public hearing. Previously, police department assistant chiefs Mike Seber and Jack Falvo had unwritten understandings about the benefits they received, said Acting Mayor and City Council President Gary McCarthy. The same was true for Farstad, who was allowed to rack up overtime in 2009 and 2010 as part of an agreement with former Mayor Brian U. Stratton. The agreement was a way for Stratton to make it up to Farstad for the chief being left out of a more lucrative retirement system. Once the media learned of the deal in November 2010, the overtime ended. The new employment conditions do not have to be applied to the fire department, as there are no longer assistant chiefs serving in that unit.
Yes, put it in writing that you can't have benefits not authorized in your WRITTEN CONTRACT. Otherwise, managers might give you benefits you aren't entitled to and no one higher up will notice because they are busy giving themselves benefits they aren't entitled to. I wouldn't trust a recipient of a secret deal to be involved in making the new rules. It looks like someone is trying to distract the public into focussing on "past practice" and unionized employees to divert attention from his own misdeeds. Which is worse, a cop asking for the same deal another cop got, or an ATTORNEY cooking up a deal for himself? We need to go back to the city manager system, which was flawed but I think allows for less secrecy than this "strong mayor" crap.
What about all the other handshake deals given to others, not just administrators. Van Norden was promised lifetime healthcare coverage when he first worked in Schenectady.
How many others are still (and will always) be collecting from these deals.
Do an audit, some research maybe. Check out where the bloodmoney is going, then get a tourniquet.
Council likely to set employment terms Public hearing set for Aug. 22 on changing Schenectady charter By LAUREN STANFORTH Staff writer Published 12:00 a.m., Tuesday, August 9, 2011
SCHENECTADY -- The controversy involving former Fire Chief Robert Farstad's overtime last year will likely result in a referendum being placed on the November ballot.
The City Council will hold a public hearing at its Aug. 22 meeting on the referendum, which would call for changing the city's charter to allow council to be the sole entity setting terms of employment for city workers. Acting Mayor and City Council President Gary McCarthy said he expects council members to approve the ballot addition at that meeting after the public hearing.
The move follows the fire-chief flap, in which Farstad was allowed to earn up to $126,000 in overtime between 2009 and this year as a way to compensate for him not having been placed in a more lucrative state pension system. But once the public learned about the deal in November, then-Mayor Brian U. Stratton ended the overtime payments. Farstad retired in April, taking another $72,000 with him under a 1994 agreement with the City Council.
Council members said they didn't know about Farstad's added overtime -- even though it was listed as a line item in the yearly budgets -- and said many other unwritten deals were made with non-unionized employees dating back more than 20 years. After that, the council said it wanted to be involved in all future negotiations involving pay, vacation and sick days.
Last December, the council passed a resolution ending all "handshake deals" with non-unionized employees, but Stratton essentially threw it out, saying it could expose the city to lawsuits. Instead, the council is working in the process of security written contracts with employees, starting with with assistant police chiefs and next with other managers at City Hall.............................>>>>.......................>>>>..................Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/loca.....02.php#ixzz1UWjttbNb
This makes me sick. Locking the barn door after the horse has been stolen, buck passing... how about taking responsibility? What Stratton did was crooked. They should at least say so. You can't take the opinion of someone who was involved himself as to whether something was legal or not, either. It'sjust that, an opinion, and that one would be biased now, wouldn't it? How can the council just now be taking up the matter of written terms of employment for these highly paid positions? Let go of your ignorant "planning" notions and do your jobs, and perhaps the city won't be decaying around you while downtown dances on the deck of the Titanic. Sheesh.
The City Council agenda included one item 7A for consideration. This is the “official version.” I remain skeptical and will look into it a bit further.
Quoted Text
The City Council will hold a public hearing at its Aug. 22 meeting on the referendum, which would call for changing the city’s charter to allow council to be the sole entity setting terms of employment for city workers.
I find it hard the city would do anything that could possibly really address this abuse. Public Hearing? Give me a break. Can anyone tell me when a public hearing made a difference?
I think perhaps the public hearing is to show how sensitive they are to the will of the people. Something that gets on television, as in "Look at how serious those Schenectady officials are about cleaning up corruption! Why, it's on TV!" That kind of thing gets a lot of mileage with some people.
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