Government Employees

Harford County government employees collected more than eight tons of food to help less fortunate residents of the county and the region in conjunction with the annual Harvest for the Hungry campaign. The food collected last week was delivered to the parking lot of the county office building at 220 S. Main St. in Bel Air Friday morning where Harford County Executive David Craig and other county officials and the staff of the Harford Community Action Agency were by joined by Harvest for the Hungry founder and Harford resident Larry Adam.

Harford County government employees collected more than eight tons of food to help less fortunate residents of the county and the region in conjunction with the annual Harvest for the Hungry campaign. The food collected last week was delivered to the parking lot of the county office building at 220 S. Main St. in Bel Air Friday morning where Harford County Executive David Craig and other county officials and the staff of the Harford Community Action Agency were by joined by Harvest for the Hungry founder and Harford resident Larry Adam.

AMERICANS ARE in a surly mood, and, of late, much of their indignation has been directed toward government employees.It doesn't matter whether these workers are federal, state or local; they are treated with contempt usually reserved for the most indolent and nonproductive members of society.We got a glimmer of the intensity of this earlier this month when the Anne Arundel County Council heard testimony on proposed changes to the county pension system designed to save taxpayers money.Dvorak's expletivesAnne Arundel's Chief Administrative Officer Robert J. Dvorak, himself a highly paid public employee, exploded at a council hearing amid snickering by much-lower-paid county workers.

Members of a union for Harford County educators have accepted an agreement with the school system that will allow members to accept a one-time bonus that had been held up for months over a disagreement with County Executive David R. Craig. Nearly 2,000 Harford government employees received the first half of the $1,250 bonus in December and expect the remaining money in June. But the teachers union rejected the offer, saying Craig did should have run the offer by union and school board first.

Howard County Executive Ken Ulman has announced a new RideShare program for Howard County government employees. Those interested can go to the county's intranet to complete a registration form; the program will match registrants with other employees interested in joining a car pool. Residents who are not government employees may also take advantage of the program. The program, which offers a way to calculate how much drivers spend on commuting and how much they will save by car pooling, is part of the county's effort to address rising fuel costs and promote a more sustainable environment.

In recognition of Labor Day, the Orioles are offering discounted tickets to federal government employees and their families for their 1:35 p.m. game on Sept. 6 against the Minnesota Twins. Federal government employees and contractors, military personnel and their family members may purchase left field lower box seats for $20 or upper reserve tickets for $8. Individual tickets may be purchased in person at the Orioles ticket office or by calling 1-888-848-BIRD. Fans will need to provide a valid government photo ID if purchasing tickets in person or the name of the federal government agency or department and ID number if ordering by phone.

If the President really wants to cut the budget, let him, starting with himself, his Cabinet, Congress and all their staff and advisors, and all the non-uniformed government employees. Cut their salaries and benefits by 10 percent. This would work for all the state governments as well. Dr. Arthur S. Jensen, Parkville

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration is pressing ahead with a plan to transform background investigations of many government employees into a profit-making business run by a newly created private company, despite protests from some members of Congress, Cabinet officials, and investigators worried about confidentiality and security lapses.Under the plan, which has been in the works for a year and a half and will take effect at the end of this week, about 40 percent of security and other background checks on government employees and job applicants will be taken over by an employee-owned, profit-seeking company.

WASHINGTON -- Federal employees will receive annual pay increases of about 5 percent between 1992 and 1994, along with extra pay in the following years to close any gaps between government employees and their private counterparts, as part of a sweeping $4 billion pay agreement reached yesterday between Congress and the Bush administration.Federal employees in high-cost areas -- such as New York, Los Angeles and Washington -- where there are problems of retaining and recruiting workers would also receive "locality" pay increases in addition to the across-the-board salary increases.

Random drug tests of drivers ruled outWASHINGTON -- Government employees have won another drug-testing victory with a federal judge declaring that random testing for Department of Health and Human Services drivers is "unreasonable and hence unconstitutional."Advocates of federal workers say this is just the latest round in the battle against a 1986 executive order that instituted a program of mandatory random drug testing of government employees.Since then, the American Federation of Government Employees, the National Treasury Employees Union and the American Civil Liberties Union have engaged in a number of court challenges to narrow the scope of the testing.

The National Security Agency says it found top-secret information on hard drives that were seized in a failed espionage probe, and the agency is refusing to release the computers — despite the continued protests of their owners. In court filings in Baltimore this week, the government says the seized computers "cannot lawfully be returned. " NSA's deputy chief of staff for signals intelligence concluded that disclosing the contents of one computer hard drive would "cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.

According to Occupy Wall Street protesters and Democrats, the Grinch stealing Christmas this season is the collective corpus of bankers, hedge fund managers and other financial-sector bigwigs who don't pay their fair share in taxes. It's easy to see why. They make perfect scapegoats for unemployed college graduates with lots of debt, big-government liberals and others who want to believe a black-and-white narrative of the country's financial collapse and blame someone. But protesters and others should hold a mirror up to themselves and check the facts on the "1 percent.

Erin Wiley, a GIS analyst for the Department of Planning and Zoning, was named Harford County government's Employee of the Month for May. Wiley, a nine-year employee of Harford County Government, was nominated for the award by Bel Air attorney John Gessner. According to the county, like many other citizens and land use professionals, Gessner has frequently sought Wiley's assistance in producing and printing maps and aerial imagery based on required specifications. "She is unfailingly prompt, pleasant, accurate and cooperative," Gessner stated in his nomination.

Every day in the news, we hear about people protesting how government is treating the people. Not only in the Middle East and London but here in the USA and even in Maryland. The basic tone is that people are completely fed up with government taking everything (money or rights) from the people and returning nothing. Just in the past few days, Maryland's news has been littered with stories of incompetent state and local government agencies. State agencies destroying critical health care records.

If the President really wants to cut the budget, let him, starting with himself, his Cabinet, Congress and all their staff and advisors, and all the non-uniformed government employees. Cut their salaries and benefits by 10 percent. This would work for all the state governments as well. Dr. Arthur S. Jensen, Parkville

When is a promise not a promise? People who loaned money to subprime homebuyers have one view. Those who bought stock in 1st Mariner Bank at $10 a share have another. (It's now $1.) So do those who expected long careers at Black & Decker and were laid off in a brutal recession. In an age of diminished resources, bad faith and dashed hopes, everybody's feeling jilted. But few groups sound as aggrieved as the government employees whose pensions are being cut by financially stressed states, cities and counties.

A Columbia Forum survey of county government and school employees who live outside Howard County has yielded surprising results about theneed for affordable housing here.Nearly 80 percent of the employees under age 35 who responded to the survey said they own their own homes and live in two-income households with total incomes above $40,000 a year. For those over 35, the percentage was even higher.More than half of the respondents under 35 said they would like to move within three years and that western Howard County would be their first choice for a new home site.

Outside income ban may hold for a whileWASHINGTON -- Government employees may not be able to earn outside income for at least another year, despite last week's federal court ruling that the ban on such fees is unconstitutional.U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who made the ruling, chose to keep the ban on payment for "speeches, articles or appearances" in place until the Justice Department has a chance to appeal.Justice has 60 days from last Thursday to decide what action it will take.

Two measures intended to create a more independent and transparent ethics board and to strengthen guidelines for officeholder conduct were signed into law Wednesday by Baltimore Mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake. The new laws are "an important step forward for Baltimore" and "represent one of the most sweeping changes to the Baltimore city ethics board in many years," said Rawlings-Blake, who sponsored one of the measures in one of her last acts as City Council president. Concerns about the city's ethics law came to light during the investigation and criminal trial that eventually led to the resignation of Mayor Sheila Dixon.

Betty W. Herron, a retired federal government worker and homemaker, died of complications from emphysema Jan. 16 at the Edenwald retirement community in Towson. She was 84. Betty Williams was born and raised in Washington, where she graduated from Roosevelt High School. She earned a bachelor's degree in 1947 from George Washington University. Mrs. Herron went to work in 1947 for the National Educational Association in Washington as an assistant librarian and was an archivist at the National Archives from 1948 to 1950.