The POST ''letter to City Manager'' has much more of this same thing.
Cash-strapped Mesa pays 2 for same job
Retired code official back on job
Justin Juozapavicius
The Arizona Republic
Jun. 7, 2006 12:00 AM
Despite employing an acting code compliance director for nearly a year at more than $68,000, Mesa has paid nearly $31,000 in that time to the person who previously held the job for contract work.
The extra pay to former Code Compliance Director Bill Petrie, who retired last summer after accepting a severance package from the city, has some residents seeing red, especially after the city complained for more than a year about its shaky financial footing. Petrie was among 104 veteran employees who took buyouts in 2005.
But city officials said Petrie is performing a special contractual assignment that has nothing to do with running the Code Compliance Division. advertisement
''I can't even tell you how much it ticks me off,'' said Marlborough Mesa neighborhood leader Alma Jones, who wrote City Manager Chris Brady a letter in March asking for an explanation of Petrie's rehiring on a contract basis. ''In the past six months, we've had no help from code compliance. Period.''
For the past 10 months, Petrie has been working for Mesa to develop a policy and procedures manual for code compliance, among other duties. He has been paid $30,995.05 for his services, according to the City Attorney's Office.
''The Code Compliance Division has historically been understaffed when benchmarked both nationally and in the Valley,'' Deputy City Manager Paul Wenbert wrote in an e-mail to The Mesa Republic. ''As such, Bill did not have sufficient time to develop the procedures manual when he was Code Compliance Director.''
Wenbert requested that questions from the newspaper about this article be e-mailed to him in advance.
Critics said these financial practices continue to tarnish the Neighborhood Services Department, whose top official is the subject of a workplace discrimination complaint.
Last year, Neighborhood Services Manager Lisha Garcia promoted Angela Duncan to acting code compliance director from a Management Assistant II position with Wenbert's support.
Duncan's salary went from $55,993 to $68,242 with the new job. And in December, Garcia requested and received a special compensation check for $500 for Duncan, citing the ''quality of her work under a tremendous amount of pressure and under increased scrutiny as budgets decrease,'' according to records.
Wenbert wrote that Duncan ''has been doing an excellent job.''
Garcia has been accused of discriminating against employees because they were not Hispanic. Last June, Debbie Driscol, a 10-year employee and popular neighborhood outreach coordinator, brought a complaint to the city's Human Resources Department, accusing Garcia of creating a hostile workplace environment. Driscol resigned abruptly nearly three weeks ago.
Cash-strapped Mesa pays 2 for same job
Retired code official back on job
Justin Juozapavicius
The Arizona Republic
Jun. 7, 2006 12:00 AM
Despite employing an acting code compliance director for nearly a year at more than $68,000, Mesa has paid nearly $31,000 in that time to the person who previously held the job for contract work.
The extra pay to former Code Compliance Director Bill Petrie, who retired last summer after accepting a severance package from the city, has some residents seeing red, especially after the city complained for more than a year about its shaky financial footing. Petrie was among 104 veteran employees who took buyouts in 2005.
But city officials said Petrie is performing a special contractual assignment that has nothing to do with running the Code Compliance Division. advertisement
''I can't even tell you how much it ticks me off,'' said Marlborough Mesa neighborhood leader Alma Jones, who wrote City Manager Chris Brady a letter in March asking for an explanation of Petrie's rehiring on a contract basis. ''In the past six months, we've had no help from code compliance. Period.''
For the past 10 months, Petrie has been working for Mesa to develop a policy and procedures manual for code compliance, among other duties. He has been paid $30,995.05 for his services, according to the City Attorney's Office.
''The Code Compliance Division has historically been understaffed when benchmarked both nationally and in the Valley,'' Deputy City Manager Paul Wenbert wrote in an e-mail to The Mesa Republic. ''As such, Bill did not have sufficient time to develop the procedures manual when he was Code Compliance Director.''
Wenbert requested that questions from the newspaper about this article be e-mailed to him in advance.
Critics said these financial practices continue to tarnish the Neighborhood Services Department, whose top official is the subject of a workplace discrimination complaint.
Last year, Neighborhood Services Manager Lisha Garcia promoted Angela Duncan to acting code compliance director from a Management Assistant II position with Wenbert's support.
Duncan's salary went from $55,993 to $68,242 with the new job. And in December, Garcia requested and received a special compensation check for $500 for Duncan, citing the ''quality of her work under a tremendous amount of pressure and under increased scrutiny as budgets decrease,'' according to records.
Wenbert wrote that Duncan ''has been doing an excellent job.''
Garcia has been accused of discriminating against employees because they were not Hispanic. Last June, Debbie Driscol, a 10-year employee and popular neighborhood outreach coordinator, brought a complaint to the city's Human Resources Department, accusing Garcia of creating a hostile workplace environment. Driscol resigned abruptly nearly three weeks ago.
