Buyout

DETROIT -- Ford Motor Co.'s buyout plan drew an overwhelming response from white-collar employees in parts of the company, prompting the automaker to begin saying no to some offers. Employees who thought they had buyout deals were shocked and angry after learning that the offers were being pulled, some Ford workers told the Detroit Free Press. Yesterday was the final day for workers to accept buyouts. "They got more retirements than they bargained for," a longtime Ford engineer said.

The buyout  that Maryland negotiated with former defensive coordinator Todd Bradford is to pay him $300,000, according to a copy of the agreement obtained under a public records request. The document, dated Jan. 12 and obtained today, says Bradford was to get $50,000 on Feb. 3 and will receive $250,000 on July 12. Bradford, hired from Southern Mississippi, was at Maryland for just one season and was replaced by the University of Houston's Brian Stewart. Bradford's contract had two seasons left and had guaranteed him $350,000 per year.

Maryland has completed a negotiated buyout of defensive coordinator Todd Bradford's contract -- clearing the way for the school to hire a replacement. The Sun reported Dec. 22 that Bradford -- whose defense  ranked last in the Atlantic Coast Conference, surrendering an average of 34.2 points and 457.2 yards per game -- was likely out. The school has now reached a buyout agreement with Bradford. The terms are not yet public. "We appreciate Todd's efforts this past season and wish him well in his future endeavors," Maryland coach Randy Edsall said in a news release.

Maryland has completed a negotiated buyout of defensive coordinator Todd Bradford's contract -- clearing the way for the school to hire a replacement. The Sun reported Dec. 22 that Bradford -- whose defense  ranked last in the Atlantic Coast Conference, surrendering an average of 34.2 points and 457.2 yards per game -- was likely out. The school has now reached a buyout agreement with Bradford. The terms are not yet public. "We appreciate Todd's efforts this past season and wish him well in his future endeavors," Maryland coach Randy Edsall said in a news release.

As a soon-to-be 40-year state employee, I and many of my public safety peers are wondering about the fairness of Gov. Martin O'Malley's buyout offer, since virtually all of us — parole and probation agents and supervisors, state police officers and correctional officers, for example — are on the long exclusion list. However other employees of the same and other agencies who are in very limited or unique job classifications and who may have relatively limited experience apparently are not excluded.

Workers at Advertising.com in Baltimore will be eligible to participate in a voluntary buyout program that its parent company, AOL LLC, is planning next month as part of a larger effort to cut one-third of its work force, or 2,500 positions. Advertising.com, which is AOL's online advertising network, employs about 400 people at the Tide Point office complex in South Baltimore. Time Warner Inc. is spinning off AOL, a one-time Internet giant, on Dec. 9, and the company will be accepting volunteers to leave between Dec. 4 and 11. AOL, which is based in New York City, has said that if it does not get enough volunteers, it will resort to involuntary layoffs.

THE magic word in business these days is "buyout." xTC Companies are feverishly offering their employees buyout contracts so that they will leave and reduce the work force of the institution. More money is being made from buying out employees than there is from manufacturing a product.The great success story of the buyout strategy is the Lean and Mean Screwdriver Company. The buyout vice president is Warren Tenderloin. When I arrived he was sitting at a card table in front of the main gate of his factory with a stack of bills in front of him. There was a line of people as far as the eye could see. Warren was counting out the bills and shaking hands with each (( person.

Even Stuart Berger called his $300,000 buyout "foolish" and "a lot of money to give someone for doing nothing." He added, "I feel bad about it."The former Baltimore County school superintendent probably isn't alone in that feeling. Odds are plenty of county taxpayers feel not only "bad" about it but downright outraged.Dr. Berger, relieved of his duties earlier this week, can't be faulted for taking the payoff. When he realized his tenure was nearing an end, he hired an attorney to land as good an offer as he could get. The county school board came through with an offer that was better than good.

The buyout  that Maryland negotiated with former defensive coordinator Todd Bradford is to pay him $300,000, according to a copy of the agreement obtained under a public records request. The document, dated Jan. 12 and obtained today, says Bradford was to get $50,000 on Feb. 3 and will receive $250,000 on July 12. Bradford, hired from Southern Mississippi, was at Maryland for just one season and was replaced by the University of Houston's Brian Stewart. Bradford's contract had two seasons left and had guaranteed him $350,000 per year.

If Stuart Berger says he feels "bad" about the excessively generous $300,000 buyout he accepted to resign the Baltimore County school superintendency, imagine how county taxpayers must feel."

So Newt Gingrich is borrowing from the Democrats' oppo-reserach book with his attacks on Mitt Romney's legacy as a leveraged buyout artist. Suddenly leveraged buyouts are "predatory" and "paper shuffling," Gingrich says, according to the NYT . Financed by billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson, Gingrich's Super PAC will flood South Carolina with anti-Romney ads, portraying the former Bain Capital exec as a heartless raider who ruins companies by...

Three years ago, Constellation Energy boss Mayo Shattuck signed up a huge French electricity company to save his job. By now, he may be wondering whether the deal was worth it. Owned mostly by the French government, EDF Group first clashed with Constellation about developing a new nuclear reactor at Calvert Cliffs in Southern Maryland. Then it publicly threatened Shattuck in a stare-down over a financial option worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Now it's trying to bust up Constellation's $7.9 billion agreement to merge with Chicago-based Exelon Corp.

Even as the Baltimore County Council weighs an employee buyout plan that could chop millions from next year's budget, officials are leaving open the possibility of layoffs and furloughs. Council members discussed the early retirement proposal at a meeting Tuesday at which administration officials told them it would save about $14 million each year. County Executive Kevin Kamenetz proposed the buyouts last month. The plan is intended to cut about 200 jobs from the county's workforce of 8,000.

To trim operational costs, Baltimore County officials may offer eligible employees a retirement incentive package that could lead to the elimination of about 200 jobs. At the request of County Executive Kevin Kamenetz, the County Council introduced a bill Monday detailing the offers that will be made to about 1,100 eligible employees in the county's workforce of about 8,000. Those eligible for and interested in the offer would have to apply no later than Dec. 30 and would end their service by Feb. 29. Members will discuss the proposal at the Sept.

Northrop Grumman Corp. said Tuesday that it is cutting about 500 jobs in the Baltimore region — through buyouts and 70 layoffs — as a result of defense spending slowdowns and international economic pressures. The local layoffs account for half the 140 employees nationwide notified Tuesday that their jobs will end May 31. They are primarily engineers and manufacturing workers in the defense contractor's electronic systems sector, which has headquarters in Linthicum as well as locations in other states.

On the heels of 330 teachers' accepting early retirement packages from the city school system, officials will propose a similar deal for 500 of its most experienced instructional support staff. According to an early retirement incentive plan scheduled to be presented at the city school board meeting Tuesday night, the school system will look to trim its pool of paraprofessionals who have more than 10 years' experience by offering them 50 percent of their base salary for a year and a sick-leave payout to be put into a school investment plan.

Leaders of Baltimore's Longshoremen's union have rejected an offer by the Steamship Trade Association for an $18 million buyout of the program that pays Longshoremen when they are not working.The Baltimore District Council of the International Longshoremen's Association voted unanimously late last week to reject the offer to pay each member of the 1,800-member association $10,000 in exchange for eliminating the Guaranteed Annual Income (GAI) fund by March 1994."We didn't think it was sufficient," said Richard P. Hughes Jr., head of Local 953, which represents the 400 checkers and clerks who handle the port's paperwork.

WASHINGTON -- With time to avoid federal layoffs running out, Congress is moving toward a showdown next week on legislation that would authorize bonuses of up to $25,000 for federal workers to resign or retire early.Some agencies lack sufficient funds to pay all their employees until Oct. 1, when the next fiscal year begins, administration officials and members of Congress say, and will have to order layoffs if the buyouts are not approved.After months of haggling, the House and Senate agreed yesterday on the major points of the legislation, resolving their differences over the financing of added pension costs caused by the buyouts.

The city school department's offer of early retirement buyouts to its most experienced teachers has attracted about 330 applicants — enough, school officials say, to go ahead with a plan intended to save the system millions of dollars over the coming years. But while maintaining financial stability is essential to keeping Baltimore's school reform process on track, the real challenge will be to translate those savings into measurable growth in student achievement and better classroom instruction.