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Two short stories from the AP were up last night.
Illinois officials in Governor Rod Blagojevich’s (bluh-GOY’-uh-vitchz) administration hired a man to work in Cook County for a job located in another part of the state.
The Department of Employment Security put George Rada (RAY’-dah) in the administrative post that had been transferred to Freeport just three weeks before his March 2003 hiring. But Rada has always worked in Chicago.
Transferring the job to Stephenson County meant I-D-E-S could hire Rada without having to confront state laws that give veterans preference in state hiring. Federal prosecutors already are scrutinizing Blagojevich’s hiring practices.
I-D-E-S had no plans to reverse what it acknowledged was a “flawed” hiring process until The Associated Press asked about it. A spokeswoman says the agency began the paperwork today to return the position to Cook County.
The second quotes a governor’s spokesman saying they would not reopen the job after it was discovered that the hire was improperly executed.
What appears to have happened here is they moved a Cook County job out to Freeport so that no veteran in that region would likely qualify. Then they gave the job to Rada and moved it back to Cook County, thereby skirting the veterans’ preference hiring mandate.
posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 2:01 am
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I think the state should fire Mr. Rada and offer the job to Tammy Duckworth.
Comment by 6 Degrees of Separation Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 2:42 am
So, Lt. Gov. Quinn, how’s it going with your plan to increase benefits for veterans?
Ethics. This administration is all about ethics.
Comment by Rele Tahrd Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 6:11 am
[Rimshot for “6 Degrees”]
Actually, this is not that unusual. I’ve seen this administration post a position, then close it when a candidate other than the one they wanted to hire is selected, then back-door the person they wanted in the first place into the job anyway. It may be that previous admins did the same thing, but it’s only in the last 3 years that I’ve personally seen it happen.
But the Veteran’s preference is poorly implemented - you basically have to do a whole hiring process open only to Vets, and then if you fail to get a good job applicant start the whole thing over again for non-Vets. As you can imagine, this isn’t very efficient and most supervisors dislike it. Past Gov’s have acknowledged that, and I beleive Ryan said he was going to work on changing the policy, but it still stands.
Comment by Tertius Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 6:15 am
If I were John Kerry I would throw my medals/ribbons (you decide which) at the governor’s mansion. But nobody there would know what they are or what they represent and they would just walk all over them.
I respect my country and I respect the huge sacrifices military personnel make for me and my family. I have no respect for Rod Blagoyevich and his corrupt adimistration.
Comment by Quang Tri Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 6:21 am
Shouldn’t be too hard to recruit members for this group.
Comment by Veterans For Eisendrath Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 6:26 am
So what’s new.Typical Blago and Boys doing what they want to do.Good or bad if it is a rule then the governor should be the first one to follow it.If it is a bad rule he should get it changed not violate it.No he sneaks around it because changing it would make us veterans mad.
Comment by WAY DOWNSTATE Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 6:27 am
Tertius is right. It is very common for state agencies to post a position, then decide not to fill it on that posting if the person they want to hire doesn’t score well or is otherwise unqualified. Another way in which the Personnel Regs can be manipulated so that favorites can be hired. It’s legal.
This is not limited to avoiding veterans prefrence. Managers who want to hire a crony can easily manipulate the Code and the Rutan requirements to hire the person they want to hire, regardless of interview score, as long as the candidate meets the most basic qualifications of the job.
There was a time when nobody cared much about this because state jobs were considered to be so low on the desirable job totem pole. However, especially for the Management employees (union members bid on jobs by seniority and classification so there is little discretion in selection) we are now talking about handing out literally millions in salary, benefits and pension value, over the career of a successful job candidates in the non-exempt MC classifications. They never leave and it’s impossible to fire them.
The solution is to put all manager positions at will. Yes, more of them will be political. But it will be easier to fire them and fewer are likely to stay on for decades, warming a chair and doing little else, as is the case with so many now.
Taxpayers in Illinois can no longer afford to support luxuriously compensated lifetime civil service jobs, especially since the performance standards for incumbents are so low.
Comment by Cassandra Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 9:12 am
I agree with the second quote; it is improper to punish an innocent party for the improper acts of others. Is Rada an innocent party? That’s harder to say. Is there another party somewhere in this issue that’s clearly not innocent? Almost beyond a doubt.
Someone had to tell Rada to list Stephenson County as a county of choice on his app or he couldn’t have been hired there. Maybe Rada didn’t find that odd, since he probably listed Cook first and figured he was just being told to fill in the blank. But whoever told him to do so absolutely knew what the game plan was.
I don’t want to sound holier than thou or seem a hypocrite, but couldn’t they at least have the guy report to Freeport until he was thru his probationary period, and then transfer him back?
Comment by steve schnorf Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 10:39 am
I don’t usually waste my time responding to most of the uninformed nonsense spewed forth by a number of the contributors to the blog, but in this case I have to make an exception.
Cassandra asserts, without any basis in fact, that “management employees” employed by state government obtain “literally millions in salary, benefits and pension value, over the career of a successful job candidates in the non-exempt MC classifications. They never leave and it’s impossible to fire them.”
As a former “management employee,” I can assert from personal experience that I certainly didn’t obtain the “millions” that she asserts are handed out. But, I was only employed in state government for 20 years and left in 2002, so perhaps this largesse resulted from the Blago administration (sarcasm).
As to her assertion that management employees “never leave and it’s impossible to fire them,” management employees are by definition the class of state employees that are subject to 4 year terms. Term appointments do not have to be renewed. There need be no reason given for non-renewal of term appointments. Have incompetent term appointees been renewed because of non-job-related circumstances? I suspect that is true and continues to be true under the current governor.
Converting all “manager” positions to at will positions will not solve any problems. It will just screw up the day-to-day operations of the various agencies even further. Competent managers of day-to-day operations of state agencies should not have to be in fear of losing their jobs every time a new governor takes office.
Policy making upper management of state agencies should be at will employees so that when a new administration takes office, they have the opportunity to have their own people in charge. That’s why in left in the spring of 2002. I was in an exempt position and realized that whoever won the election, Jim Ryan or Blago, should and would put one of their own people in the spot I occupied. That, plus the fact I was able to be compensated at about a 33% increase over what I was making in government . . . .
Her final paragraph about luxuriously compensated lifetime civil servants is more nonsense. The overwhelming majority of the folks I worked with in my 20 years of state service were there because they believed in the mission of the agencies in which they worked. The overwhelming majority of them worked hard for significantly less than they were able to earn in the private sector even factoring in the “benefits.”
Comment by response to Cassandra Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 10:40 am
The news article makes reference to Rada as ‘working’ in Cook County as opposed to ‘working’ in the county where the job is located. The reality is that Rada has never done any work for the agency in the two+ years he’s been there. It was made clear from day one that he is the patronage person for IDES, and his only ‘job’ is to try to pressure hiring officials in the agency to hire persons who are connected to the administration. He has always been assigned to the agency’s human resources office, yet the job he was officially hired into, based in Freeport, has nothing whatsoever to do with HR. If someone in the media did just a little digging, they’d find a treasure trove of unethical—and in some instances illegal–hiring practices in IDES.
Comment by john q public Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 11:22 am
Finally the media latches on. Many of my friends at CMS are horrified at the action of supervisors but are worried about retribution. This is common practice these days at CMS.
Many though the days had ended when the former head of Personnel “moved” to another agency and another CMS employee was placed on leave and then moved. Bernie Schoenberg had a small write up a couple months back but the Govs office (i.e. inspector general) stonewalled and nothing changed.
Someone in the media should ask why applications come down with a yellow sticker (i.e. important). They get graded and returned to the higher ups and the “final” application gets turned in later with changes so that it qualifies for the required grade.
Favored applicants are told to apply to small counties to avoid the vets preference rule. This is not new.
Comment by gross negligence Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 11:44 am
I applied for a state job in ‘98. I had veterans preference, but I didn’t get the job.
The law requires qualified vets go to the head of the line.
Why didn’t I get the job?
The hiring people refused to give me the exam for the position, so I wasn’t technically qualified.
The sweetest irony: I was applying for a position to investigate discrimination.
Comment by Carl Nyberg Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 11:46 am
Let’s not kid ourselves. This type of hiring has been going on in state government for at least the past 30 years, started by Thompson, formalized into policy by Edgar, exploited by Ryan and stupidly continued by Blagojevich.
Every agency has had a Rada but usually the “rada” was the HR manager. Most of the people who complain about the way Rada’a came into state government came in the same way he did and because they were locked in their positions by Ryan’s rules changes, they are still around. Glass houses anyone?
Comment by anon Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 11:48 am
The posting by John Q. Public was clearly submitted by a whining, career bureaucrat that feels he was bucked by “This Administrationâ€. What is astonishing to me is that whinny wimps like this jerk have such short memories. Political hiring has gone on forever, during this administration and everyone before it. Stories like this give losers like John Q. Public something to hang there hats on.
Comment by Get Real Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 12:01 pm
Don’t worry campers.. only one more year left of Blago.
Comment by Anonymous Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 12:08 pm
Maybe Nyberg didn’t get the job because he’s a raving lunatic?
Comment by Tired of Carl Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 12:15 pm
I have to agree with Cassandra. A lot of these positions that are now covered by MC should be at-will–I don’t care if it’s Blagojevich’s administration or some other future administration.
Comment by Leopold Bloom Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 12:16 pm
This type of hiring has gone on for many years. If there is someone who is wanted for a job they are *awarded* a Public Administration Intern position or some made up intern position. Six months after, they get promoted to the higher paying job. I have seen it many, many times at DCCA/DCEO.
As for MC personnel, it hardly matters that you are MC. If they want you gone, you are gone. It just takes a bit longer, requires more paperwork and the employee is harassed to no end with the hope he/she will leave because of the heat. I’ve seen that a few times myself.
Comment by Papa Legba Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 1:51 pm
you can be assured the feds are stepping up their investigation for Cinni and the boys based on the administrations hiring practices. You can also rest assured skirting of veterans preference is high on their list. This is not the last you will hear of this conversation.
Comment by Political Hack Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 1:54 pm
Yea I keep hearing about those Federal boys and I think they are as the old saying goes”never around when you need one’.The way they are going either Blago is innocent or his grandkids is going to have to post his bail.
Comment by WAY DOWNSTATE Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 2:02 pm
Why am I not surprised? What is it with government agencies and groups having to be forced to hire veterans? First, it’s the LAW. Second, it’s great PR for the agency and a great way to help advance and employ the bravest among us (other than police officers and firefighters). I know GRyan did this, too, but Blago needs to be taken to task for what is happening now.
Comment by Team Sleep Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 5:10 pm
Tertius - the absolute veteran’s preference may be cumbersome, but Jim Thompson and Jim Edgar agreed to it - because in their wildest dreams they NEVER thought that patronage would be ruled unconstitutional and illegal by the courts, and that they would have to abide by it.
Comment by Wat Tyler Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 5:47 pm
DCEO is not the only agency that has routinely bypassed the ‘absolute veterans preference’ law (and let’s not forget that it’s a law, folks) by bringing favored non-vets in as Public Administration Interns and then, usually within a year, moving them into a position that otherwise would have been offered to a vet. If someone was to check into this, they’d find that then offending agencies don’t have any plausible explanation. To say that previous administrations also did this is as pathetic as it gets. This governor has made ethics his cornerstone.
Comment by anonymous Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 5:53 pm
10:40 am:
I’m not referring to term employees. They are hard to fire while on term, but very easy to fire at the end of term. They tend to be political hires, although not always, and can be inconvenient if their term spans two different administrations. Blago still has term staff who were appointed by Ryan. Sure, they can be pushed out during term. But not if they don’t want to go. Terms were a bad idea.
However, I’m talking about the hundreds if not thousands of Public Service Administrators and similar classification which are not covered by union contracts and which count as managment. Supervisors, field office managers, etc. They have ironclad civil service protection and they are NOT on term. If they choose, they are there forever. And there are a lot more of them than
term employees. As a group, they are far more expensive.
Many make $70,000 and up plus health and pension.
Look at their pay scales. So, they stay 15 years, they’ve made a million alone not counting the increasing value of those pension and health benefits, plus the pension itself. Add it up, it’s well over a mil. State employees are expensive. That’s my point. Any system that forces taxpayers to keep paying these folks, regardless of performance, regardless of whether the “work” they do really needs to be done, causes unnecessary expense to the taxpayer.
Their motivations for being on the job, to the extent that such can be determined, are irrelevant.
Comment by Cassandra Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 5:54 pm
Reading these absurd criticisms on this blog I was compelled to look atIDVA’s (Illinois Dept of Veterans Affairs) website and I was pleasantly surprised. The Department has accomplished many positive initiatives for our vets in the past 3 years. This stems from what a great job Director Roy Dolgos has done with the dept. I hear that Director Dolgos is doing an outstanding job and he has been more active than any other director from previous Rep administrations. A friend told me that the previous director did absolutely nothing to promote new initiatives during his term and went as far as to state that PTSD does not exist amongst veterans. Many current and former IDVA employees can confirm this!!
So please looking at what happened at IDES seems like an isolated incident in which the individuals who were directly innvolved should be punished. So lets not crucify the whole administration as a guilty party b/c like him or not, Blago has done more for veterans than Ryan, Edgar, or Thompson combined.
Why doesnt the press ask questions on to why has the 5-collar county area been neglected by the previous Rep administrations? The answer is that they didn’t care about the 5-collar county area b/c it has been traditionally a democratic area. Looking at the demographics there are more than half-a-million vets living in the collar counties and why isnt there a veterans home in the Chicago area? Simple, the Reps wanted their downstate Rep vets taken care of first.
So all you critics, do a compare and contrast of accomplishments (or non accomplishments by the Reps) before you go on to criticize based on what seems to be an isolated incident. But I do agree these actions were completely wrong.
GOD BLESS AMERICA!
Comment by Interpol Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 7:42 pm
Interpol, did you remember not to use the campaign pc?
NEW WAY OF DOING BUSINESS, folks - NEW WAY OF DOING BUSINESS.
Comment by Norseman Friday, Dec 16, 05 @ 9:48 pm
Cassandra- you are an uniformed idiot. The “new” Blago management team is still trying to figure out where all the keys are to the buildings- especially downstate. They are only interested in politics and power- not governing.
If it wasn’t for the “thousands” of MC employees, the state’s operations would be in further disaray than they currently are. The overwhelming number of MC employees are the true professionals of state government- they have college degrees in their field- they work long hours with no overtime (cash or comp)- and they are concerned with their role in their departments. We continue to do our jobs, we keep our heads down to avoid the glares from above- and pray that the next 12 months flies by. As someone who voted for “change”- I am disappointed, and won’t make that mistake again.
Comment by evilroy Saturday, Dec 17, 05 @ 8:50 am
Evilroy–you are right about Blago’s people still looking for the keys and yes there are many many MC emplyees worth thier salt but Cassandra is right too….there are a lot of do-nothing hacks as well but isn’t that the case everywhere? And I realize it still doesn’t make it right. I also hear over and over that people who voted for him are disappointed but what did this guy (Blagojevich) do for Illinois besides say that he vowed to clean up corruption?! What did he ever do for Illinois while in Congress? Seriously someone tell me something….anything! How could anyone vote for a guy backed by the Chicago political machine who invented corruption. Jim Ryan may not have had “Elvis” charisma but the guy worked a lifetime in public service, did for the most part a lot of good things, lost a beloved child, survived cancer and STILL wanted to get up every morning and “govern” Illinois. I sincerely hope that in the upcoming election voters will not fall for empty worded one-liners and will make an effort to be more informed voters.
Comment by LAC Saturday, Dec 17, 05 @ 10:15 am
evilroy when the do find a set of keys they lose them like one of Blago’s pride and joy wardens done at the prison.I know a couple of these MC people they don’t like what is happening anymore than the rest of the state but what do you do complain and that makes you a target.Write your legislator and if they find out you got more problems.Also a lot of legislators are Democrat and they think Blago is doing a wonderfull job.So you stick it out hoping for a replacement at election and hope it is someone who REALLY cares.I had a guy explain to me why Blago does not care and why him and his family will not live in Springfield and that is they feel that this governor’s job is just a stepping stone to the White House.Nothing more.
Comment by WAY DOWNSTATE Saturday, Dec 17, 05 @ 1:45 pm
Norseman,
FYI i am not a campaign worker, im a citizen who respects veterans and their families for the sacrifices they have made to serve our country. How sad is it that you have to spin my comments into political cynism but i know why… the truth hurts and the numbers do the talking. You can trace my ip address i have nothing to hide.
MERRY CHRSITMAS
Comment by Interpol Saturday, Dec 17, 05 @ 6:36 pm
Sorry for the typo…
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Comment by Interpol Saturday, Dec 17, 05 @ 6:39 pm
Evilroy, Couldn’t agree with you more, Cassandra is completely uninformed! Being the manager(term appointment) of quite a few of the these merit comp PSA employees, I can tell you that almost all(95%) are committed, dedicated, and hard working employees who want to do what is right for the State of Illinois and it’s citizens. There is in-fact a few that are not and I can assure you that they CAN be fired. It takes some work and lots of paper work but it can be done.
Most if not all of these positions are covered by civil service code and Rutan covered. The chances of these being switched to exempt (political) at-will status are quite small considering the Supreme Court ruling in 1990, see link:
http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/case/341/
A major problem as I see it is that most of these employees are now petitioning to join the union because of the way they have been treated recently (perceived or real). Most of these people don’t even want to be union members; they consider themselves managers and part of the team. Unfortunately the shortsighted and uniformed opinions expressed by Cassandra are all too prevalent in recent years and have resulted or will soon result in thousands of these important management positions going into the union.
Do you think the cost of these employees will go down once they go into the union and get regular and sizable automatic raises of 3.5-8% per year? Do you think it will be easier to fire incompetent employees when they are cover by the union contract? Do you think it will be easier to hire competent unionized managers when the main promotional criterion for most union employees is seniority?
Bottom line is the state needs a competent, professional, and motivated management staff, unfortunately these attitudes do nothing but de-motivate these managers which in the end makes it harder to carryout and implement important and critical state programs.
Stuff Cassandra should have learned in both government and management 101.
Comment by Boris Saturday, Dec 17, 05 @ 8:39 pm
America works best when you say - UNION YES! Unless CMS draws a line in the sand (which they can do, BTW), expect many management, MC, and professional degreed state employees to be unionized by this time next year, and perhaps rolled into the existing AFSCME/Teamsters/SEIU contracts.
I expect they WILL be harder to fire after this happens. Although there are certain protections now available to employees who are not covered by the unions but are covered by Rutan, as opposed to the “at-will’s” who can be notified to clean out their desk and escorted out of the building at any time. The union will bargain for extra protections for their new people similar to what their existing membership holds.
Some think this was the plan all along by this admin, and others think it was an unintended consequence of the management raise “strategy” of the last 3 years. In any case, it’s likely to happen. And it will have the other intended or unintended consequence of offering protection to many of Blago’s installs, and future gov’s, too, long after their administrations are gone.
BTW, this is a trend that was started in the blue coastal states like NY and CA, and has slowly worked its way into the rust belt. Not a new concept.
Comment by 6 Degrees of Separation Saturday, Dec 17, 05 @ 9:09 pm