Schools Superintendent Peter Gorman may be running out of patience with local government. The normally shmoozy, go-along-to-get-along Gorman surprised observers of local government yesterday by delivering a good smack to County Manager Harry Jones and other city and county honchos. As part of his announcement that he and his top administrators will do without bonuses for the second straight year, Gorman noted, “Unlike other government bodies, we awarded none.” Not a scathing indictment, maybe, but for Charlotte’s uber-polite (aka mutual butt-smooching) political culture, that’s a smackdown.
The contrast between Gorman and the “other government bodies” is striking and worth pointing out. During the current budget year, some city and county bigwigs took their performance bonuses — most notably County Manager Harry “Show Me The Money” Jones, who received a $38K bonus on the heels of cutting county jobs and denying the rest of his serfs raises; the DSS embezzling scandal; and bad publicity surrounding Jones’ attempt to silence a critic by forwarding the critic’s e-mail to the man’s corporate boss. Then, City Council got in on the act, giving City Manager Curt Walton a $16K bonus, plus a $15K bonus to City Attorney Mac McCarley, during a tough year when city employees aren’t getting raises or merit-based bonuses.
If Gorman is pissed at Jones and his county administration, he has excellent reasons to be, and not just because of bonuses. The way in which Jones & Co. waited until nearly the last minute to tell CMS and the Public Library to gut their budgets — they didn’t realize until then that revenue was going to be lower than expected for the coming year (!?) — was a textbook case of poor management, if not outright incompetence. The resulting nerve-wracking trauma for Gorman, his staff, and the school board (not to mention citizens concerned about the schools) has been needlessly painful, and no doubt played a part in the superintendent’s sideswipe of Jones yesterday. Frankly, we’d love to see more casualties of Jones’ mismanagement come forward with their views.
This article appears in Mar 30 – Apr 5, 2010.
Even in “good” economic times, state and local govt and the school system are always pinching pennies. So where is all this bonus money coming from? Did county/city workers get a raise this year? Last year? Are wages for county/city jobs keeping pace with the cost of living? How many teachers have been/will be laid off, how many programs will be cut due to budget constraints?
Neither county/city nor school system management should receive bonuses. These people make very good money – far more than the underpaid, beat-down worker bees. Any bonus money needs to be used to increase salaries, benefits, and/or equipment for workers.
It is interesting to hear people say that the budget shortfall was not anticipated. But the County cut $70M last year and warned of additional cuts in subsequent years. For the first time in recent memory there was no revenue growth, especially sales tax revenue. Plus, if it was unanticipated, every municipality in the country was asleep at the switch, many are in even worse shape than Mecklenburg County. Reminder that Harry Jones didn’t award himself a bonus. His performance was thoroughly reveiewed by the Board and was the same money he earned the previous year. But the most astounding error in your story in the reference to “embezzlement.” If you have information that no one else (including police investigators), please call police with it immediately. Otherwise please refrain from stating as fact that a crime was committed.