From Paychecks to "Duck Walls" — Odds and Ends around Albemarle County
Just some Whatever Albemarle odds and ends here that I wish to sweep from my desktop and get off my chest.
1) County Executive Tom Foley continues to NOT provide compensation information to the public when he announces new hires in the upper echelons of Albemarle County government. So, I continue to ask for it every time he announces whatever else he prefers to announce about our new employees. The reason I ask for such information is simple. It’s one of the few tools that we taxpayers have to evaluate how well and how hard our employees are working for us. In my view, any taxpayer-paid government employee who makes more than $1,000.00 per week — guaranteed — needs to be working very, very hard and with very, very good customer relations. So, here are Tom’s latest staff additions (or promotions in the case of Major Jenkins), with their total compensation showing, after I submitted another Virginia Freedom of Information Act request.
Claudette Borgersen, Clerk for Board of Supervisors
Salary = $56,001.01
Benefits = $21,518.20
Total Compensation = $77,519.21
Karen Carr, Police Major
Salary = $102,500.01
Benefits = $33,854.75
Total Compensation = $136,354.76
Andrew Gast-Bray, Director of Planning
Salary = $105,000.00
Benefits = $34,678.50
Total Compensation = $139,678.50
Greg Jenkins, Police Major
Salary = $112,468.30
Benefits = $36,218.23
Total Compensation = $148,686.53
Congratulations, One and All! Thanks for all the work you'll be doing for the residents of Albemarle County. We're counting on you.
2) Have you heard of the newest non-profit lobbying group to form in the Central Virginia area? It’s called the Charlottesville Area Alliance (CAA). The organization, which has been meeting privately for several months, had its coming out party this week in a radio interview on WINA. The main voice behind CAA is Peter Thompson of The Charlottesville Senior Center, Inc. Peter is the amiable Executive Director who has pushed for Albemarle County to give his private, non-profit $2 million tax dollars for a new complex to be called The Center at Belvedere in Democrat Supervisor Brad Sheffield’s Rio Magisterial District.
The Charlottesville Area Alliance name is interesting. It’s a label for a group whose mission is to promote an “age-friendly community.” With that purpose in mind, one might think the CAA would call itself the Charlottesville Aging Alliance. That, however, might turn off others in younger demographic groups. Perhaps that’s why the word “Area” was preferred over “Aging.” Maybe it’s easier to lobby for tax dollars from an “Area” than it would be from just a slice of the population singled out as “Aging.”
CAA’s chosen name does fit nicely, though, with other “Area” organizations. There’s the Jefferson Area Board for Aging (JABA), the Charlottesville Area Chamber of Commerce, and Jefferson Area United Transportation (JAUNT) as examples. For full disclosure, Rio District Supervisor Brad Sheffield is JAUNT’s director. The Charlottesville Area Alliance mimicks the “Area” concept quite nicely, don’t you think? Affinity can potentially be good for fund-raising, especially from the government trough.
Perhaps CAA will become the aging equivalent of IMPACT, an amalgamation of various “Area” religious groups that lobbies (strong-arms, some might say) Central Virginia elected officials for tax dollars for IMPACT’s preferred social efforts. By the way, IMPACT stands for Interfaith Movement Promoting Action by Congregations Together. IMPACT might have had, well, even more impact by adding another “A” for emphasis — maybe they could have been IMPAACT? — Interfaith Movement Promoting “Area” Action by Congregations Together.
According to information from a resolution quietly adopted August 4, 2016 by another “Area” agency called TJPDC (Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission), the lead organizations for CAA include: The Senior Center, Inc.; JABA; The Alzheimer’s Association (of Central and Western Virginia, presumably); JAUNT Inc.; Westminster-Canterbury of the Blue Ridge; and TJPDC. For the financial record, JABA ($317,000), JAUNT ($1.5 million), and TJPDC ($127,000) already receive taxpayer funding from Albemarle County.
How about a prediction? Why not. Let’s look for CAA to come calling for tax dollars from both the County of Albemarle and the City of Charlottesville for the organization’s “age-friendly community” coffers by the end of the fiscal year, but certainly not before Albemarle County settles its $35 million school bond referendum vote one way or another on November 8.
3) The 2015-2016 Albemarle County Human Resources Department Annual Report is now available for public perusal from HR Director Lorna Gerome. Here are some highlights that caught my attention for whatever reasons:
• Lorna’s smiling photo is prominently displayed in the middle of Page 2. Her summary ends with an invitation to the public to call her department at 296-5827 with “questions and suggestions.”
• The report only covers Local Government, not Albemarle’s School Division.
• HR hired 152 new employees in FY2016.
• The department received 3,015 applications.
• Sixty percent of the new hires found their job online.
• The employee turnover rate (not counting retirements) for the year was 11.4% which is up from 6.1% the previous fiscal year.
• Departments with some of the highest turnover rates included: Emergency Communications Center - 911 (40%), Finance (27%), Community Development (21%), and Police (17%).
• The number of minority employees decreased by 2%.
• The report says: “Many of our employees call Albemarle County their home.” The exact figure is 44%. Thirteen percent of Albemarle’s employees live in Charlottesville, 11% in Fluvanna County, and 6% in Greene County.
• Page 16 of the report had a chart of how many employees Albemarle had in each pay range, but the chart was so small and so difficult to read as to be less than useful or helpful. It appears that the Local Government side had between 25 and 50 employees making annual salaries of over $100,000 in FY2016, but the chart doesn’t show how much over $100,000 nor does it show Total Compensation — when the extra dollar value of all benefits are added in.
4) Albemarle’s unaudited Preliminary Annual Financial Report for FY2016 has been placed in the Board of Supervisors agenda packet for the October 5 meeting and for public inspection. The 15-page report comes from Director of Finance Betty Burrell.
According to Page 9 of Burrell’s report, Albemarle’s Projected June 30, 2016 Fund Balance is $46,064,762. However, $37,429,061 of that amount is already committed by Policy or Prior Approvals. That leaves Albemarle with a current projected Fund Balance — what you and I would call a “surplus” — of $8,635,700.
If the math there seems funny to you, it did to me also. The difference in the surplus is off by a dollar when subtracting $37,429,061 from $46,064,762.
Maybe a rounding error? Something to do with a few pesky pennies uncounted?
Oh, who cares? What’s a buck between friends anyway?
(By the way, on the School Division side, Burrell shows an estimated June 30, 2016 surplus — there again’s that word bureaucrats hate to hear — of $4,691,109 but with $3,327,240 of this Fund Balance — ah, that's better — already committed. That leaves a net remainder — with no public dollar missing after the arithmetic is done — of $1,363,869 for the School Board’s future use.)
5) Finally, anyone familiar with Albemarle’s “Duck Wall?”
Well, Supervisors Liz Palmer (D, Samuel Miller) and Diantha McKeel (D, Jack Jouett) certainly are. And they don’t sound like they're going to take it any more!
During the Board’s September 29 meeting, McKeel, who represents the area where the “Duck Wall” resides, called it “huge and ugly” and wants money “put into our deteriorating urban areas” to do something about such eyesores.
Palmer, who dubbed the massive, photo-adorned retaining wall at the intersection of the Barracks Road and 29/250 Bypass off-ramp as the “Duck Wall,” called it “a horrible, debilitated, piece of cracked concrete” and said it gives the perception that no one cares about the area being entered.
While McKeel claimed her infrastructural outrage was not just about beautification, it was obvious from the tone and volume of the two women’s comments that they meant to ruffle some feathers about the appearance of this neighborhood entrance.
Maybe all McKeel and Palmer were trying to say is “If it looks like a duck . . . .”
Wonder if they would have quacked had it been a Hillary Wall.