Overtime Pay Spikes in Montgomery County

By: Rachel Baye Examiner Staff Writer 08/09

The four Montgomery County agencies that spend the most on overtime pay shelled out 26 percent more in the last three months of the fiscal year than during the same period last year, data shows -- defying the County Council's request that departments reduce overtime spending as they looked for ways to save money in a tight budget year.

In the last quarter of the fiscal year that ended June 30, the agencies that consistently spend the vast majority of the county's overtime costs -- Fire and Rescue Services, the Police Department, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Corrections -- increased the spending by about $3 million from the same time last year, according to a report by County Stat.

Top 10 spenders April 1-June 30
Department Overtime Fire and Rescue Services $4,662,492.17
Police Department $3,446,321.56
Department of Transportation $2,177,288.87
Department of Correction and Rehabilitation $1,147,116.33
Department of General Services $287,926.38
Department of Liquor Control $139,604.01
Health and Human Services $69,001.33
Department of Environmental Protection $35,986.44
Department of Housing and Community Affairs $17,447.33
Sheriff’s Office $15,515.35

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/2011/08/overtime-pay-spikes-montgomery#ixzz1UvV1aP4E

Tax-free Holidays Set for Maryland, Virginia

By: Ben Giles Examiner Staff Writer Follow Him @ben_giles 08/03/11 8:05 PM

Customers in Maryland and Virginia can dodge sales taxes this August without the hassle of being audited by shopping during the states' tax free holidays.

Each state announced dates when sales taxes on clothing, shoes, and back-to-school supplies will be suspended, in an annual effort to cut costs at the checkout line.

Virginia will abandon its 5 percent sales tax this weekend, from Friday through Sunday. The discount applies to school supplies worth $20 or less, as well as shoes or clothing valued at $100 or less.

Maryland's holiday will be held from Aug. 14 to 20, with the same rules for clothing and shoes. But shoppers will have to fork out the 6 percent sales tax for paper, pencils, lunchboxes and other school supplies.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/virginia/2011/08/tax-free-holidays-set-maryland-virginia#ixzz1U6WfelmE

Them That's Got: Double Dipping in MoCo

Here is an interesting editorial in today's Washington Examiner.  Ever wonder why your taxes don't go quite far enough here in progressive Montgomery County? This could provide an answer.  Thanks to the editors of the Washington Examiner for covering our county so well.

Examiner Local Editorial: Montgomery County and double-dipping developers

One reason Montgomery County is in such deep financial straits is that it has been overpaying developers, including $3.7 million for the same Germantown pumping station and water main for which they were also reimbursed by the Washington Suburban Sanitary District, according to a Feb. 15 interim report by county Inspector General Thomas Dagley. In 2005, at the beginning of the project, WSSC said it would reimburse the developers even though the project was being financed with tax-exempt Montgomery County bonds. However, an unnamed official in the county's Finance Department refused to issue an assignment letter to WSSC. And when Dagley's office later asked for documentation to support the cash payments, "OIG was not provided any purchase orders, invoices, or other detailed financial records by MCG Department of Finance that supported the developers' requests for reimbursements as required by MCG procedures."

Read more at the Washington Examiner here.

Weekend Roundup

So much news, so little time!  Here are three items that echo interests of readers of this blog.  First off, County Executive Leggett has proposed cutting funding to the internal audit program for the County.  Read about it here, in the article by Alan Suderman in today's Washington Examiner.  I don't know whether this is good or bad, really.  As there is no oversight anyway, would we taxpayers be saving money should this go through?  Tough call.  Councilmember Valerie Ervin (D-District 5) of all people voted against the cut.  Yet when she was on the Board of Education she did not do the tough work of a fiscally responsible BOE, rather, she let the budget go through the roof with no oversight.  Similar for Councilmember Nancy Navarro (D-Developers) who also for some inexplicable reason voted against the cut.

Second item, this one regarding transparency.  Apparently the UK has launched an open data site, that, according to the article, by Marshall Kirkpatrick, puts our federal data.gov to shame.  Wonder how it compares to our Montgomery County "efforts" at transparency.  Read the article here, at ReadWriteWeb. Or see for yourself, at data.gov.uk.  Here's what the home page of this site says:

"We’re very aware that there are more people like you outside of government who have the skills and abilities to make wonderful things out of public data. These are our first steps in building a collaborative relationship with you."

...and by the way, they have a link to a wiki on their homepage, yes, the UK government website wants to hear from its citizens.

Finally, we see that WSSC once again wants to raise our rates, this time a whopping 9.5 percent.  This may be the most incredible article of all this weekend.  Read it here, in the Washington Examiner, and kudos again to Mr. Suderman for continuing to follow these 'breaking' stories.   WSSC is incapable of even the most basic monitoring of our dangerous watermains.  Many of these watermains were manufactured by Interpace, the company that was run out of business because it went bankrupt due to so many catastrophic failures of its PCCP pipes nationwide.  WSSC has stalled and seems unable to provide even the most basic data about these pipes.  WSSC still has not completed step one in a safety plan.  That would be compiling a map showing where all these mains are located.  The recent comprehensive article in Bethesda Magazine quoted one firefighter on the scene at the River Road failure, saying that he didn't know there was a watermain on that street.  The article also quoted WSSC officials who said in the case of a water pressure drop, the first action is to increase the flow, i.e., to raise the pressure.  Well, that explains a lot.  Is there a watermain running under the street at your school? It would be prudent to check.

Have a great end of the weekend!