Friday, April 20, 2012

Doctor, Doctor, Give Me the News, I've Got a Bad Case of...

hiring buddies from out of state and paying them exorbitant salaries for positions, regardless of if they're qualified for the position or not?

Well, that doesn't quite fit into the lyrics of the original song. And it doesn't really describe me. But it does describe Frank Straub (did you know that he has a PhD and is from New York????) and how he acted to quickly hire a new interim police chief for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department.

However, the replacement doesn't meet the qualifications to be a police chief in Indiana. You can find the city and state code that outlines those requirements here, included in the blog comment by Concerned Taxpayer.

So instead of just appointing someone else as acting chief (can an acting chief even be legally permissible under city and state code?), another officer is going to be acting chief while the new guy gains the proper certification and whatnot.

So basically, we're paying this new "not" acting chief to be a glorified consultant? Two people doing one job?

Maybe this is just me, but if I was a rank-and-file officer, I'd be a bit confused about who is really in power.

This seems to be a reoccurring problem with the good Doctor. The Department of Public Safety (DPS itself, not the departments it encompasses), not all that long ago, had a total of two employees. Now, we're well north of a dozen. It seems to have expanded at a rapid rate, and we wonder why IMPD can't fully staff their beats?

Oh, I'm sorry, we're not doing beats anymore. We're doing zones.

Maybe its just me, but if I needed someone to take over a position just for a little while until I could find a permanent replacement, I'd do it a bit differently. I'd promote someone from within, preferably someone who isn't interested in continuing beyond the interim period, bump up their pay a bit, and then start looking for a replacement.

I certainly would not drag some guy from some other state, have him move here for a temporary job, and then fire him once the position is filled.

But hey, that's just me!

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please see the Indy Student Blog Policies page for the full policy on blog comments. Verification of comments by typing in a random word is required to prevent spam. Due to recent blog inactivity, comments are now pre-screened to prevent spam advertisement.