Posted on 11/03/2009 8:50:59 AM PST by george76
Budget Committee Senator Says Freeze Was Mismanaged.
Gov. Bill Ritter promised a hiring freeze last year to help bridge the budget gap, but a CALL7 investigation found that as many as 2,300 employees were hired during the “freeze.”
“We have taken a number of steps to shore up our fiscal house: imposing a hiring freeze, stopping several new construction projects and halting non-essential spending requests,” Ritter said in his January 2009 State of the State speech.
But a CALL7 investigation found that the number of state employees increased during Ritter’s hiring freeze, and Ritter’s top staff, who were tasked with managing the freeze, did not know how many people were hired.
“So, during the hiring freeze, the number of employees actually went up?” asked CALL7 Investigator John Ferrugia.
“Yes,” said Jim Carpenter, Ritter’s chief of staff.
Carpenter, in an interview with 7NEWS, repeatedly said about 600 employees were hired during the freeze, which ran between Oct. 1, 2008 and June 30, 2009.
Days later, Ritter staffers said there were actually 1,454 people hired during the freeze but they could not explain why the personnel database shows more than 2,000 hires. They later said the 1,454 number wasn't accurate either.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedenverchannel.com ...
Those “job freezes” are usually just to be able to tell people who aren’t pre-screened (ie. a friend, a relative, a donor, etc) that they can’t hire.
It’s not as important THAT they hired during a freeze, but as to WHO was hired and what their connections are.
My experiences working with the State of Colorado as a consultant for over 10 years to the State for a number of divisions was that the hiring was nearly perfectly ethical. There may very well be documented cases of cronyism and nepotism, but I found every hire I witenssed to have been processed according to the rules and never was there cronyism or nepotism for new hires. Strange as that may seem, I’m not kidding. There were cases that seemed a department favored homosexuals or minorities and that could be considered cronyism, but I never found a friend of a friend get hired or a family member.
August William "Bill" Ritter, Jr. (born September 6, 1956) is an American politician of the Democratic Party, and the current Governor of the state of Colorado.
I could have written this article in 4 words:
“Politicians Are Incompetent Boobs” or “PulbicServants-Big Fat Liars!”
Take your pick, I ‘ve got a million of ‘em.
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