Comments on Advance Indiana™: Indiana State Employees: Welcome To The Rules Governing Private Sector Employees

I know one thing if I were Mike Pence or Jim Walla...

2011-06-26T08:08:01.246-05:00

I know one thing if I were Mike Pence or Jim Wallace I would be mad as hell about the change to the merit system. I can just see John Gregg and the democrats going after them for all of Daniels misteps! Also I find it interesting that even alot of people at SPD dont seem to have a clue about what the new system will do! In this case I think the Republicans in the legislature did what Obama and the Democrips did in congrees. They signed laws without reading them! I am sure alot of republicans will regret that these changes were approved! Oh by the way their are alot of republicans who are merit workers! And they like Paul Ogden, and Gary Welsh, and the late Carl Moldthan have been sounding off about the ineptness and utter incompentance that has gone on in this state since 2005! One last thing to remeber is that Paul Ogden's lawsuit involves misconduct committed by an ardent liberal democrat whoose conduct was allowed to go on by the current administration according to him!

Under Daniels, the "pay for performance"...

2011-06-26T00:46:30.042-05:00

Under Daniels, the "pay for performance" and "civil service"/pre-deprivation laws have been an absolute joke. He has massively increased the size of upper-level positions in more than one state agency with cronies/loyalists who have never worked at the agencies before and appeared to have failed in the private sector (if I had to guess, those agencies that were increased were not outliers, either). He has decreased the number of employees, but he's increased the upper management levels (who make really good money), sacked/forced retirement on long-term people (I'm talking about good employees here) with YEARS of knowledge on the job that will never be seen again, not focused on training in many places, and the turnover is rampant (low pay many places, culture of incompetency and fear). Those ingredients, I believe, negate any monetary gains from "shrinking the state workforce", and I think I could make a helluva good argument it has damaged this state far greater than The Blade's "cost savings" have supposedly saved us.

Trust me, there are some low-functioning/low-intelligence people hired since 2005 who will stay there as long as the Administration wants them to because those employees are brainless and clueless (or a close friend/family member who's brainless) who do every little corrupt, money-wasting thing the Administration wants them to do without doing anything about it or trying to stop it. If the Administration wants anybody who speaks-out about their corruption gone, though, they get them gone and gone fast while trying every trick in the book (including by illegal means) to make their target pay.

DWD never liked me or my friends because we were mainly young and not sycophants (there's many young asskissers working there, though, trust me), and we constantly challenged (and are still challenging) DWD because they have destroyed our state's unemployment system (which has devastated businesses and deserving claimants as well as taxpayers who don't know they are paying for a lot of unemployment they shouldn't be paying). In many ways my friends and I were whistleblowers (first internally, and then externally) of DWD, and they tried to destroy us. Oddly, some upper level people at DWD have publically accused me of being a Democrat because I expose how bad they're doing (with factual evidence). What's that say about them and the job they've done, and what are they then saying about Republicans?

I completely sympathize with what people like Paul have gone through (and what they did to you is crap, Paul, and they know it) -- and he's absolutely right that there needs to be a middle ground. I, too, regret this change in civil service laws, and I think it will backfire.

Those who passed this law might take heed: Republicans won't always be in the Governor's Mansion (or pretending to live there, at least), and when the Democrats next occupy the office, they can, by these laws, vindictively control state employees the way this Administration has done. It will be a Reign of Terror and a Reign of Error as much as it is now under Mitch. Past administrations have been rightfully scorned for keeping "worthless employees" or those five of six workers watching the sixth dig, but how is what's happened under Daniels better? Well, it ain't.

If it helps productivity...I say "go for it.&...

2011-06-25T14:38:01.264-05:00

If it helps productivity...I say "go for it."

Paul, I hope you continue to press your fight aga...

2011-06-24T23:42:58.161-05:00

Paul,

I hope you continue to press your fight against the state! For the sake of the people of Indiana we need more good men and women like you out their fighting! I can just see an explosion of litigation emerging over these new civil service rules. One thing is strange though is they have not yet written the new administrative rules yet. I hope you post about the new civil service system on your blog and outline potential affects it could have on politics her in the hoosier state.

Actually under Executive Order 05-14 signed by Dan...

2011-06-24T14:02:39.031-05:00

Actually under Executive Order 05-14 signed by Daniels, non-merit employees with more than six months experience get due process protection like merit employees, including the requirement of a pre-deprivation meeting, the right to know the allegations, the right to see and present evidence, and the requirement that "just cause" exist for any disciplinary action.

When I wrote the memo to Jim Atterholt outlining legal violations at the Department Insurance, Atterholt immediately called me into a pre-dep meeting. They told me it was required because I had more than six months experience. But they didn't tell me what I did wrong, didn't provide me with any evidence, didn't allow me to introduce evidence or witnesses. They didn't provide any justification for the threat to fire me if I didn't resign. Of course a forced resignation is equivalent to a termination, a fact they apparently didn't understand at the time.

The Attorney General's Office admits I wasn't given due process required under EO 05-14. They took the position instead that I wasn't entitled to it. They said I was an ESM at-will employee and ESM is an exempted job category in EO 05-14.

Every personnel document I received classified me in the EXBB job category. The AG responded that EXBB is a subset of ESM. I went to state personnel and got a listing of job categories which showed EXBB as a separate and distinct job category apart from ESM. I should also point out that I was told by state personnel that as an EXBB employee I had due process rights after six months pursuant to EO 05-14.

So you know what the AG's office did in the middle of my lawsuit? They went in and changed the state personnel job categories document so EXBB was made a subset of ESM, the ONLY job category that is now a subset of another job category. The AG's office claimed State Personnel had made simply made a mistake. They submitted the newly altered document to the court to oppose my summary judgment.

To this day the AG's office has yet to produce a single document showing EXBB is a subcategory of ESM (and thus I wasn't entitled to due process) other than the document they altered. It just blows my mind that they have been able to get away with this far. I should have won summary judgment and hopefully still will.

I bring this up because at-will EXBB state employees probably don't realize that they lost their due process rights as a result of what the AG's office did. Of course it doesn't matter any more apparently given the change in rules. I regret that they did this. There is a middle ground between unionization and scrapping rules that protect state employees from doing things like I did which was whistleblowing.

Wow! I'm saying this has been needed for a WAY...

2011-06-24T13:29:22.012-05:00

Wow! I'm saying this has been needed for a WAY long time! No more, 5 guys leaning on shovels, watching one guy dig!
The only problem will be the spate of lawsuits for "discrimination" that will come flying when people get fired.