Today's moment of cronyism brought to you by the Beshear administration.
The state agency that doles out money to local governments has hired Jennifer Chandler, the wife of Democratic U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler, and added 16 other appointed officials Wednesday, including Bell County's Democratic Party chairman.
The state Personnel Board has voted not to investigate the discrepancies of Treasurer's office during Jonathan Miller's tenure.
The state Personnel Board has decided not to investigate two referrals from former Personnel Secretary Brian Crall concerning two hiring-related moves in the office of former state Treasurer Jonathan Miller.
"This effectively is the final act on these matters, unless other referrals are brought to the board's attention," the board's general counsel, Andy Crocker, said Wednesday.
Crocker said the board voted 4-to-1 Friday on each referral not to investigate, with one abstention in each vote.
This is an absolutely bizarre ruling. I have no idea how they couldn't investigate the salary increase of Rebecca Parker in June of 2004.
Rebecca Brooke Parker in June 2004 should never have been granted because there was no written justification to support them. The two increases totaled $566.92 a month.....
...... An attorney for the Personnel Cabinet in late December said Miller's office wrongly processed the raises for Parker, but the mistakes could be fixed by being resubmitted as a bonus known to state employees as an ACE, or Award for Continuing Excellence.
I guess simple math is beyond the capabilities of the members on the board. Let me see if I can help them. First, Brooke's raise was $566.92 a month. Let's take a second and calculate how much that is a year. How many months are in a year? 12. Ok to calculate her salary for a year we need to multiple her monthly increase by the number of months in a year.
566.92
x 12
-----------
1133.84
5669.2
-----------
6803.04
The product of 566.92 times 12 is 6803.04. That means her salary was increased $6,803.04 per year. Here is where the problem begins and why there should have been an investigation. The guidelines for the ACE award state that a raise can not be more than 10% of the mid point of the person's pay grade. We can use simple algebra to determine what the mid point of the person's pay grade must be to substantiate this type of raise. The simple equation below can be used to determine the value. In this case x equals the mid point salary.
10% $6,803.04 ---- = --------- 100% $ x
Now here is where the math gets a bit more difficult, but anyone with a basic understanding of algebra should be able to keep up with it. The first thing we are going to do is multiple both sides by x.
x * 10% 6,803.04 -------- = -------- 100% 1
Now we can multiple both sides by 100%
x * 10% 6,803.04 * 100%
-------- = ---------------
1 1
Simplifying, we get the following.
x * 10% = 680,304%
We can now divide both sides by 10%
x = 68,030.4
That means that the mid point of her pay grade must be equal to or greater than $68,030.40 for her raise to be qualified as an ACE award. The only pay grade's that have a mid point that high are those of grade 18 or higher. There are only a handful of state employees that work in that pay grade range. She wasn't one of them. Therefore the size of the ACE award was ILLEGAL. And there is no way she could have gotten 2 ACE awards because you can only receive one every two years.
The ruling was a complete embarrassment. I think the members of the board should go back to school and take a few remedial math courses.
The liberals in this country always tell us that the conservatives are the party of hate. We conservatives do nothing but practice the politics of hate! As college football commentator Lee Corso would so aptly say "Not so fast my friend!"
Arthur Brooks a professor at the Syracuse University finds statistical proof that the left in this country is the true party of hate. Please take a moment today and read his commentary in the Wall Street Journal. It is illuminating to say the least.
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