As soon as I saw the article in San Luis Obispo's local paper, front page on June 28, 2012, entitled "Cuesta Removes Underperforming Official", I knew that we'd be paying full salary and benefits for a long time to a person who simply could not do their job. Turns out that my entirely too predictable conclusion was true. Let's look at a few of the details, shall we? [Read the article for the full story, if you can stomach it].
The employee in question has the initials of CG. Well, CG was relieved of her duties 4 months ago, with FULL PAY and FULL BENEFITS. Seems she is on PAID administrative leave for another 3 months, until September 2012 - 7 months of full pay and benefits, without one minute of work towards the good of Cuesta Junior College in SLO and the good taxpayers that support this pay and benefits giveaway. Just for the record, according to the Trib article, CG makes a grand $156,921 per year, plus full bennies. Another person, DW, was appointed to take CG's duties starting July 1, 2012.
DRAFTING EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT 101: Looking at CG's employment situation a little closer, we find that she is 1 year into a 3 year contract. That contract specifies that she be given 90 days notice (that's 3 months to the math-impaired) if she is to be terminated, and after that 3 months, she gets a guaranteed 18 months of full pay and benefits, for a total of 21 months of pay AFTER she has been fired! Who drafted and approved this woeful contract? It basically guarantees 3 years of pay and benefits, regardless of performance. Nobody with a HINT of competence gets fired upon the start-up of their new job, as it usually takes about a year to determine if a person really can do their job. By then, the employee gets fired, but would receive 21 months pay of the 24 months left on the contract - brilliant! Or maybe that was just the intention of the contract in the first place - to reward one of your own with a big, juicy, don't-do-your-job-and-you'll-get-paid-anyways contract?
Predictably, CG needs to be replaced, and pronto, as she has been working on re-accrediation for Cuesta College - a high priority task, one would assume. In walks Cuesta Dean DW, with another immodest salary of $111,516, to take over the VP role from which CG was fired. Do we see if DW can do the job first before pumping up the already generous salary of hers? Nope (as far as we can tell from the article). Her new VP salary will be in the range of $129k to $157k (rounded numbers). Hmmmmm, wonder if DW will get the same don't-do-your-job-and-you'll-get-paid-anyways contract as CG? Well, the article doesn't indicate one way or the other, but gee, let me predict again: that's sure what I would be asking for if I was in DW's place (hey, the last guy got the don't-do-your-job-and-you'll-get-paid-anyways contract - how about me too! I might actually be able to do the job, so maybe I should get EVEN MORE than CG?).
BORING STUFF, I KNOW - MAY EVEN SOUND BITTER?: I believe that its the taxpayer's money, and it should be carefully spent. In this situation, what we now have for the next 21 months is that we will be paying approximately $300k to pay 1 administrator NOT to work (CG) while we wonder if the new administrator (DW) can do the job and keep the College from losing accreditation? To some of us, $300k is a lot of money.
I looked up the MEDIAN household income in SLO (that's the total income of EVERYONE who lives in a single family unit - not just one person), and it is $42,526. So let's see: CG is basically getting 3 years of pay at $157k per year (total $471k), which is approx. equal to 11 years of the average families income in the city of SLO. For that, CG worked for 1 year and failed at the job, then gets almost 2 years without working. The taxpayer deserves more than this for our money.
Yeah, I know: CG could get re-assigned at Cuesta and have to work for the contracted rate. We in the private sector know how well that works: once demoted, the demoted employee feels negatively emotional about the new position, and most often performs negatively in the new (lesser) position. Wonder how many open full-time positions that Cuesta has for someone as highly paid at $157k as CG? I hope that there aren't any, which means she'll be getting paid a princely sum to do a commoner's work? Who knows - that public sure doesn't. Even if CG does take another job, she's on unpaid leave until September, 2012.
WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE between this situation and say, the Fat Cat Wall Street Banker in a similar scenario? Well, for the Banker, its just not my money. Its a loss to the stockholders, but not directly to me. If I own stock in the bank, well then, the bank is less profitable and the stock price goes down and I lose out. I don't have to buy the stock, or if I already hold it, I am free to sell it and buy a different banking stock that has more rational pay policies. However, I don't have the choice to not pay taxes into a system that just throws the money away, as they have a knack for doing at Cuesta College.
This ended up being much longer than expected - sorry. Thanks to the Tribune for printing this poor use of taxpayer dollars on the front page of the newpaper. Wonder if anybody else will make the observations that I did in this article?
