County Employees

A band of retired Baltimore County employees -- most of them former police officers or firefighters -- might be able to collect both pension checks and paychecks though the arrangement violates local law.The County Council is poised to carve an exemption tonight for nine workers told by the finance office this year to choose between retirement payments or their county jobs.The primary reason for the break: The employees drive school buses, a high-stress, low-glamour job that the Board of Education has trouble filling.

AT THIS POINT in the year, the county budget cycle is much like spring.There is much activity, but little of it is visible.Just as sap is running up tree trunks, leaf buds are beginning to swell and daffodil and hyacinth shoots are pushing their way to the surface, government officials are meeting daily to assemble the county's approximately $700 million operating budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Just as we can't see much of nature's work...

Anne Arundel County Executive Janet S. Owens is asking county employees to report suspected fraud and corruption within her administration to a 24-hour hot line so investigators can keep county government clean.The County Council set up the toll-free telephone line two years ago. But then County Executive John G. Gary refused to send notices about the service to employees because he wanted his administration to control investigations.Under the council plan, the county's auditor, with whom Gary often fought, will investigate the complaints.

County offices to devote a day to recyclingAnne Arundel County Executive Janet S. Owens has declared Thursday "Clean Your Files Day" for county workers. Owens said it was a day to "dress down and clean up county offices."The Department of Public Works estimates that county employees will purge the equivalent of 150 file cabinets of papers on Thursday and on three other days when recycling will be pressed in county offices.Old memos, outdated reports and unnecessary documents are to be targeted for disposal.

The Baltimore County Council voted last night to allow a group of retirees to collect both pensions and paychecks from the county, exempting them from a law that bars "double-dipping" by county employees.The council's unanimous vote allows nine retirees, most of them former police officers or firefighters, to work as school bus drivers while they collect pension checks.Council Chairman Kevin B. Kamenetz, a Pikesville-Randallstown Democrat, said he voted for the bill because the retirees apparently were not told that taking the jobs violated the county code, and because granting the exemption would not affect the retirement system's finances.

In the weeks before the November election, the administration of Anne Arundel County Executive John G. Gary handed out $358,544 in bonuses to 165 county employees -- an action that raised the concern of the incoming county executive.Newly elected County Executive Janet S. Owens is worried that the bonus system the former executive created may be vulnerable to abuse, and her administration may study whether to continue it, said her spokesman, Andrew C. Carpenter."Mrs. Owens wants to make sure the awards are being distributed in a fair and equitable manner," said Carpenter.

ONE CHORE facing Howard County Executive James N. Robey brings back memories of the first supervisory job I ever had. It was my last college summer job. I had graduated but was still looking for work as a reporter back home in Alabama. So, I applied for an assignment in the city of Birmingham's youth jobs program.I had found work through the same program after my freshman year, running errands and assisting the staff in a rehabilitation hospital's audiology department. But the next two summers I found my own jobs; one year as a cashier in a Sears department store coffee shop, the next mopping floors and making beds as a housekeeper at a veterans hospital.

An article in the Howard County edition of The Sun on Nov. 17 incorrectly identified a group supporting a county executive candidate. The African Americans in Howard County-Political Action Committee, not the African-American Coalition of Howard County, endorsed County Executive-elect James N. Robey.The Sun regrets the error.Howard County Executive-elect James N. Robey tapped a variety of friends, business executives and even Republicans yesterday to join his transition team, which will make recommendations after he succeeds Republican Charles I. Ecker on Dec. 7.Robey named 13 people to the team yesterday and he expects 10 more to join.

Stung by their inability to stop a personnel overhaul hated by many employees, Howard County union leaders have already begun working to elect a more labor-friendly County Council in 1998.Forty labor leaders from around the region met at an Ellicott City restaurant on July 17 -- when it had become clear that the current council would pass the personnel plan a week later -- to stitch together a coalition dedicated to influencing the 1998 election."We think we can influence 40,000 votes in Howard County," said Dale Chase, president of the local chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents the county's blue-collar workers.

Howard County employees reacted with anger and confusion yesterday as they grappled with the details of a proposed personnel overhaul that would gradually make them earn less and work more for bosses with broad new powers."

Although last-minute alterations are possible, Howard County Executive Ken Ulman's $1.4 billion budget appears headed for approval Wednesday without major changes by the five-member County Council. The council finished its annual agency-by-agency review Tuesday without members offering any new suggestions for cuts or additions. Another meeting was scheduled Friday, and any council amendments to the budget legislation must be submitted by Monday. A final work session is scheduled Monday night at school board headquarters if more discussion is needed.

Howard County's government would save money by all but closing for a week in December under a proposed $1.4 billion budget that includes the biggest spending cuts in nearly two decades. All but essential county services would be shut down the week between Christmas and New Year's, so employees could be furloughed for four or five days under the plan proposed Monday by County Executive Ken Ulman. Nine employees would lose their jobs under the proposal. The property tax rate ($1.014 per $100 of assessed value)

While grasshopper-like neighboring jurisdictions happily let their budgets grow last year, Baltimore County chose the ant-like approach of austerity. No cost-of-living adjustments were given to most employees. Certain benefits were diminished. Unhappy teachers picketed in Towson, and some staged work-to-rule protests. This week, County Executive James T. Smith Jr. was the happy one surviving the economic winter in relative prosperity. His proposed $2.56 billion budget, although slightly smaller overall than last year's spending plan, will provide county workers with a cost-of-living increase.

Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr. proposed on Tuesday a $2.5 billion budget that avoids increases in property or income taxes and gives cost-of-living raises to teachers and other county employees, though it does include a modest increase in water and sewer rates. Unlike some other Maryland jurisdictions, Baltimore County envisions no furloughs, layoffs or hiring freezes, and will probably add to its work force in education and public safety in the coming year, officials said.

In what amounted to a paean to self-sufficiency during difficult economic times, Harford County Executive David R. Craig made the creativity of county employees in reducing operating costs the centerpiece of his State of the County address to the County Council last night. "Looking to Washington for bailouts and to Annapolis for solutions will not solve the challenges we face," Craig said during an eight-minute speech. Craig said that among the county's key achievements for the past year was its rewrite of the 26-year-old zoning code.

In an effort to help conserve energy, the Howard County government will offer some employees the option of altered work schedules that enable them to commute less. The new plan calls for compressed work schedules, such as a four-day week with 10-hour days, and flextime arrangements, County Executive Ken Ulman said yesterday. The new schedules would begin immediately and apply to about 1,400 of the county's approximately 2,600 workers, said Todd Allen, director of the Office of Human Resources.

Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr. probably shouldn't expect a lot of thank-you notes from his county employees this year. The $2.58 billion budget he unveiled yesterday doesn't give most of them cost-of-living raises. Teachers have expressed their displeasure with picketing and a work-to-rule protest. But the proposed budget does hold the line on spending and taxes - keeping property tax and personal income tax rates exactly where they've been for a decade and a half. That's not an unreasonable position, considering the county lost $40 million in anticipated funding from the state because of recent cutbacks and the financial squeeze put on households by the ongoing economic downturn.

Harford County Executive David R. Craig unveiled a $895.8 million proposed budget yesterday for fiscal year 2009 that includes money for renovating schools, expanding the detention center, hiring more deputies and raising salaries for county employees. His 2009 budget plan is $84 million less than the $980 million budget that he proposed last March. For fiscal year 2008, he had requested $370 million for capital projects, which was scaled down to $280 million for the 2009 budget. Citing a tough economy, Craig said he told heads of various county agencies last fall to make modest requests.

Anne Arundel County will reduce the number of take-home cars for county employees by nearly 55 percent beginning Jan. 1, resulting in an annual estimated savings of about $600,000, officials said. Each department assigns its fleet of take-home cars to individual county employees whose work requires travel throughout the county. In July, all 317 take-home vehicles were evaluated, based on the employee's job requirements, and cutbacks were made on a case-by-case basis. In the past, mileage for all county vehicles had been only assessed for low utilization.

Baltimore County officials say they will take away pay raises they have offered to detention center staff, public health nurses and 911 operators if their unions don't accept a new labor agreement by next week. The Baltimore County chapter of the Federation of Public Employees (FPE) and the Baltimore County Federation of Public Health Nurses have until Thursday to decide whether to accept one-year labor deals, according to letters sent by George E. Gay, the county's labor commissioner.