Employee Handbook Truth
The Big Bend Sentinel covered the city's employee vacation sale policy in today's paper. According to the Sentinel, Lanman said, "I signed and it's part of the employee policy that they can do that. I don't have the authority to change policy. I'm carrying the policy that was established by council." Also in the paper, Sauceda said, "The mayor is chief financial officer of the city and he's following and approving matters per the established personnel manual."
With all due respect, both gentleman are wrong and misrepresenting the truth. These sales do not meet the criteria called for in the Employee Handbook. It is interesting that neither one of them referred to the Employee Handbook by its proper title. Are they familiar with it? The mayor is not the chief financial officer. That is simply a lie. Much has been said about the official policy, but nobody has stated it. For the record, here it is from the 2002 Employee Handbook, page 37:
There are many things to consider in this short passage:
This whole thing is a mess because of Sauceda and Lanman disregarding the Employee Handbook, subverting the will of council, and engaging in unethical financial practices with our tax dollars. It is unethical because 1) Sauceda did not meet the criteria for vacation sales in the first place, 2) Lanman is not his supervisor, 3) this was probably unbudgeted, 4) Sauceda acted as his own auditor of this transaction, 5) Marfa was hardly flush with extra money, and 6) it seems that the mayor is buying the influence of the administrator. Every man has his price.
Where is council on this? Lanman and Sauceda are engaging in questionable financial practices with no oversight and in contradiction of the employee handbook. What kind of example does it set when the top two dogs disregard the employee handbook? These are real dollars. Roughly 2500 of them. Is this different than Sauceda writing himself a check for $2500 and then having Lanman and himself sign it? Sauceda's vacation sales were not authorized. If public funds are disbursed without proper authority, it is a misappropriation. At this dollar level, it is a Felony according to the District Attorney. I cannot wait to see what Monte Akers says about this. Of course, we might need to rely on Sauceda's verbal representation of his legal opinion...
From my dictionary:
misappropriate: verb [ trans. ] (of a person) dishonestly or unfairly take (something, esp. money, belonging to another) for one's own use: department officials had misappropriated funds.
Council members, this is not a problem with the handbook. It is clearly written for special cases where employees are denied the opportunity to use their vacation. You do not need to change the handbook. You need to enforce it! What are you going to do about this abuse of tax dollars and violation of the checks and balances in our government? If you overlook this possible theft, you disregard all taxpayers. If you overlook this, you lose any ethical responsibility to talk about budget crisis and financial restraint. Please do your job and look out for the taxpayers not your buddies in city hall.
For starters, why don't you demand a detailed report that lists the date, name, accrued vacation, and amount of each vacation sale for the last three years. Let's see what is really going on. Citizens want to know. Do you want to help find the truth or help bury it?
With all due respect, both gentleman are wrong and misrepresenting the truth. These sales do not meet the criteria called for in the Employee Handbook. It is interesting that neither one of them referred to the Employee Handbook by its proper title. Are they familiar with it? The mayor is not the chief financial officer. That is simply a lie. Much has been said about the official policy, but nobody has stated it. For the record, here it is from the 2002 Employee Handbook, page 37:
- The maximum amount of vacation time which may be accrued or carried over in a calendar is either 80 or 120 hours, based on your years of service. On a case-by-case basis some employees may not be able to take vacation time and may "sell" some of their time to stay below the accrual maximum.
Please report vacation requests on a form and turn them in to your supervisor for approval who, in turn, will forward them to the Comptroller for processing. A request must be submitted no late than five (5) days in advance.
There are many things to consider in this short passage:
- Sauceda is limited to accruing or carrying over 80 hours a year. He gets 80 hours at 3.08 hours every two weeks. He started on February 22, 2005. By mid-December 2005, he had worked 42 weeks and accrued 65 hours assuming he took no vacation. Keep in mind that he used lots of work time to travel but did not use his vacation time. Also keep in mind that he was planning to take time off between Christmas and New Year. By the end of the year, he would have earned 68 hours and taken maybe 32 hours leaving him with 36 hours to carry over. He was NEVER in danger of exceeding his accrual limit in December 2005. Therefore his action was not allowed by the Employee Handbook.
The same situation happened in December 2006. If Sauceda emptied his vacation account at the end of 2005, he might have been in a position to build up 80 hours by the end of 2006, but only because he never took vacation for his time off and travel days during the year! But Sauceda was "able" to use vacation and did not meet the "not able to take vacation time" requirement in the handbook. Furthermore, he was planning to take the week between Christmas and New Years off, so he was again in no danger of exceeding his maximum. - Vacation sales are allowed because "employees may not be able to take vacation time." Vacation sales are not authorized as a form of extra compensation but only if employees cannot take vacation and may go over their limit. The classic example is a public works employee or EMS employee that is denied end of year vacation because of staffing needs and might lose their vacation if they are near the limit. Vacation sales allow them to be compensated for that city-mandated loss of vacation. Sauceda fails this test as well. He was able to take vacation. He was planning to take vacation. He should have taken vacation for his weekly travel days. Therefore again, this action was not allowed by the Employee Handbook.
- Employees must submit the request five days in advance to their "supervisor." Florencio reports to the city council as stated in the contract he signed. Mayor Lanman has nothing to do with employee management. He is not a manager. He is an officer and responsible for the city following the laws. Sauceda told me that he reports to council. He knew who his supervisor was when he did that. His claim of confusion is disingenuous. Since Lanman was not his supervisor, this is a third reason that this action was not allowed by the Employee Handbook.
- So the Supervisor approves the requests and forwards them to the Comptroller for processing. Who is the comptroller? Sauceda retired (fired?) Leo Salgado, the comptroller, in May 2005. Sauceda claims to be comptroller. He falsely claims that Lanman is chief financial officer. Is anybody else scared that Sauceda thinks he is comptroller and Lanman is CFO? After Lanman authorized Sauceda's vacation sale, did he forward it to Sauceda for processing? Where are the checks and balances on this? This looks fishy because it is.
This whole thing is a mess because of Sauceda and Lanman disregarding the Employee Handbook, subverting the will of council, and engaging in unethical financial practices with our tax dollars. It is unethical because 1) Sauceda did not meet the criteria for vacation sales in the first place, 2) Lanman is not his supervisor, 3) this was probably unbudgeted, 4) Sauceda acted as his own auditor of this transaction, 5) Marfa was hardly flush with extra money, and 6) it seems that the mayor is buying the influence of the administrator. Every man has his price.
Where is council on this? Lanman and Sauceda are engaging in questionable financial practices with no oversight and in contradiction of the employee handbook. What kind of example does it set when the top two dogs disregard the employee handbook? These are real dollars. Roughly 2500 of them. Is this different than Sauceda writing himself a check for $2500 and then having Lanman and himself sign it? Sauceda's vacation sales were not authorized. If public funds are disbursed without proper authority, it is a misappropriation. At this dollar level, it is a Felony according to the District Attorney. I cannot wait to see what Monte Akers says about this. Of course, we might need to rely on Sauceda's verbal representation of his legal opinion...
From my dictionary:
misappropriate: verb [ trans. ] (of a person) dishonestly or unfairly take (something, esp. money, belonging to another) for one's own use: department officials had misappropriated funds.
Council members, this is not a problem with the handbook. It is clearly written for special cases where employees are denied the opportunity to use their vacation. You do not need to change the handbook. You need to enforce it! What are you going to do about this abuse of tax dollars and violation of the checks and balances in our government? If you overlook this possible theft, you disregard all taxpayers. If you overlook this, you lose any ethical responsibility to talk about budget crisis and financial restraint. Please do your job and look out for the taxpayers not your buddies in city hall.
For starters, why don't you demand a detailed report that lists the date, name, accrued vacation, and amount of each vacation sale for the last three years. Let's see what is really going on. Citizens want to know. Do you want to help find the truth or help bury it?
posted by RobC at 10:30 AM
3 Comments:
Veering off course for a moment:
The City of Marfa has been awarded $64,000 for a recycling grant. You haven't heard anything about that lately, have you? That is because Florencio has hit some major snags in getting it off the ground. BUT I notice that the volunteer who WROTE the grant and will most likely ADMINISTER it (and I understand the recycling project is to be staffed with volunteers---if this works like the volunteers accepted by the city for operating the pool, this will NEVER HAPPEN) is attending the Rio Grande Council of Governments Solid Waste Advisory Committee meetings. Preparing for her volunteer career in recycling. This is just another example of Flo's total mismanagement.
Plus again I beat the dead horse: Flo's first Solid Waste Grant for the code enforcement officer has NEVER BEEN IMPLEMENTED and it was awarded in November 2005.
Rob, with all due respect, no respect is due to these bozos.
In looking at this again, I realize that I left off a fifth observation:
5. The Employee Handbook says that vacation sales are to be considered on a "case-by-case" basis. This implies special situations not standard operating procedure. Lanman approved both of Sauceda's requests in December after he had accrued enough vacation to sell some and take some. This double-dipping administrator and his free-spending mayor buddy must assume that case-by-case means "every year in December."
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