Monday, October 14, 2013

Koskinen, Others, Get the Walker Civil Service Special Bonus Reward Program

Two months ago, it was uncovered that Scott Walker had manipulated civil service laws in order to give Capitol Commandant Dave Erwin a 11% raise - which translated into over $11,000 raise - for the top brown shirt in Walker's stormtroopers.

Erwin's second in command also got the same bypass of the rules and a hefty raise from it.

Walker said admitted it wasn't proper and was glad it was only a one time incident.

But c'mon now.  Is there anyone who still believes Walker on anything?

Lo and behold, there were more bending of civil service rules to reward good cronies.

One of Walker's other beneficiaries was John Koskinen.  If the gentle reader was not aware or had forgotten, Koskinen was the guy that dreamed up a new way for Walker to invent job numbers, since the real ones aren't working out too well for him.

According to the article, Koskinen got the enrolled in the Walker Civil Service Special Bonus Reward Program which netted him a $14,416 raise:
A July 11 email between two DOA personnel workers laid out the shadow job transfers for Koskinen. First, he moved from the Revenue Department to the Administration Department as an executive policy and budget manager at a salary of $100,501 a year. Then he was made the administrative manager of the Division of Administrative Services at a salary of $107,705.

After that, Koskinen was transferred to be the administrative manager of the Division of Enterprise Operations at a still higher salary of $114,917. Only then did he return to the Revenue Department with this latest salary as a civil service employee.

The email from DOA's Bureau of Human Resources director Kim Pomeroy outlined that the changes could all be made on a single day or over a two-week pay period.
The article reports that this is 26% higher pay than another person with similar duties and skills - except that the other person didn't pull Walker's arse out of the fire now, did he?

And the giving didn't stop there either.

Walker used this gimmick at least two more times:
Paula Veltum, a former building superintendent for state facilities, has seen her pay jump by more than 23% over the past two years.

As recently as 2011, she earned $66,375 in her DOA post, a figure that includes overtime, according to a Journal Sentinel database of state employee pay. By the next year, she was named an administrative manager overseeing state buildings, and her salary was boosted to $73,080 per year.

In the administrative manager post, Veltum was responsible for working with staff at the Capitol, governor's mansion and other major state office buildings to maintain those facilities, according to Marquis. But Marquis emphasized that Veltum was not in a position to receive direction from either the governor or his wife.

Records show that on May 19, officials moved Veltum from being an administrative manager to a phantom slot as an "architect/engineer manager," a transfer that pushed her annual salary to $80,213.

Two weeks later, Veltum returned to her previous job, receiving a $1,220 per year pay hike as a result of the transfer. She also received a $1,000 lump-sum bonus on the same day, a Journal Sentinel database shows.

"Veltum received offers for jobs in the private sector and at another state agency," Marquis said, explaining the reason for the moves.

In fact, Veltum left DOA in July — six weeks after her transfer from the ghost position — to join the state Department of Safety and Professional Services as a section chief in the field services bureau.

She was the only applicant for the civil service post, which pays $82,246 per year. That's an increase in her base salary of $16,871 from 2011, of which about half came from the phantom transfer.

Marquis said that politics didn't play a role in the raises given to Koskinen or Veltum, just a desire to keep good employees.

"All of these increases were related to retention," Marquis said.

[...]

In addition, Laura Ellingson, a DOA civil servant who oversee the workers' compensation program for state workers, received a 5% raise to $84,501 as part of a shadow jobs transfer over two weeks, the records released to the Journal Sentinel show.
Y'know, this may sound crazy, but maybe instead of focusing on the old Walkergate investigation, I think it's time to open up a whole new one. Preferably this time it would be done by someone who has the fortitude to prosecute.

1 comment:

  1. The problem with these stories is that it feeds into the hating of state employees by walker's minions. I am a state employee and most of us don't make anything like these wages. I know I don't.

    ReplyDelete