Nepotism Worked Wonders--

From: Ken Dye 
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2010 10:56 AM
To: Harvey Davis; Susan Feiszli
Subject: Overtime and Justification for positions

Harvey;

As part of the Personnel Committee, and a member of the Common Council, we are requesting justification for an increase in staff and overtime procedures at the Waste Water Treatment Plant. We expect this information to come from you, as chief operator at the WasteWater Treatment Plant, not John Troy or anyone else on the oversight committee. We would like the following information
provided before the Common Council meeting on Tuesday, May 4th;
1) We would like justification as to why an employee works 16 hours on both Saturday and Sunday, and gets the rest of the week off. Supposedly the Waste Water Treatment Plant is automated and can call people when there is a problem at the plant. When was this approved and by whom?
2) We need an explanation as to why your department has so much overtime. Almost $20k so far, and at the Department head meeting you stated it would surpass the $50k budgeted.
3) We need justification for the 4 positions that you have requested, not a letter from state showing what employment levels are at other sites are. They clearly left out Ithaca and Oneonta; my feeling has been that the City of Cortland does the hiring for positions within the City, not the
state.


Ken Dye
Chairman Personnel Committee

From: Susan Feiszli
04/29/2010 03:53 PM
Subject
RE: Overtime and Justification for positions
As an F.Y.I., I received a call from DEC this afternoon. They wanted to give me an advanced notice that they have completed an inspection of the WWTP and gave the City a marginal rating. DEC also asked the City to do an evaluation of their staffing level.
DEC is sending a letter along with a link to a site that will help determine what the staffing level should be given the size of our City, type of Treatment Plant, etc.. They had recommended that someone such as Barton and Loguidice P.C. prepare this since they are currently under contract with the City.

Susan

From: Daniel Quail
Subject: RE: Overtime and Justification for positions
To: "Susan Feiszli"
Date: Monday, May 3, 2010, 6:09 PM



Susan,
Last week I asked for the Waste Water Treatment maintenance plan showing what was completed by year and by whom. Given the number of retirements there should be a succession plan. The plan should layout details of the mandatory technical requirements for each position. What is the status?
Did we get an answer why one person was working so much overtime and on what?
I would like to see the exact tasks this person was performing not someone recollection
A point that should be made is how can we hire anyone if we don't know what we are looking for?
Also I would like to propose that the final decision on all new hires in the City be determined by the Common Council.
This will eliminate any nepotism or cronism that has taken place in the hiring process.

In regards to the Police position I asked for overtime by day of the week and I would like a duty roster.
By duty roster it should show who is working what shift what day of the week.

Regards,
Dan

From: MARC LEONARD
Sent: Monday, May 03, 2010 7:05 PM
To: Susan Feiszli; Daniel Quail
Subject: RE: Overtime and Justification for positions

I agree that all hires should be approved by the council, although nepotism worked wonders for my daughter.
Did you all see the forwarded letter from the DEC? I still need to know the required or suggested no. of necessary new hires to the WWTP.
When Monica sends some forwards they are titled, "emailing and a series of no.s" The DEC letter that was forwarded today had no number of employees that are required to meet standards, I can't approve a freeze lift without that.
As far as requested information, the whinney bit(#es won't talk to us any more......What now? Do they continue to request things of the council without any justification?
(Marc)

Editor's Note: This series of public domain emails is discoverable and FOILable.