Less than a week after the City of Tallahassee announced the elimination of 38 filled positions to cut expenses, Tallahassee Reports has learned that the City of Tallahassee is now seeking new employees to fill some of the eliminated positions.
The image below shows that two “Underground Utilities Tech” positions were eliminated last week. The position titles were listed as Underground Utilities Tech I and Underground Utilities Tech III. The positions were filled with employees making $29,387 and $40,905, respectively.
Tallahassee Reports has obtained a recent advertisement by the City of Tallahassee for open positions which includes “Underground Utilities Technician I, or II, or III.” These are the same position titles for two of the positions eliminated last week.
The image of the advertisement sent by the City of Tallahassee via email on July 29th is provided below.
The salary range listed for the job is $11.81 to $31.39. The low end of the range is less than the salary of the two employees let go last week.
Why would the city cut positions to lower expenses and then advertise to fill the same positions less than a week later?
Is this a one time occurrence or will other “eliminated positions” be advertised as open positions?
Tallahassee Reports will update this report when the city responds.
City Advertises “Eliminated Positions” as Open, Days After Layoffs added by Staff on
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The shame is that Tallahassee voters will reelect them again!
Shame is too light. Absurdity is more the adjective.
This was a really poor article. First of all it claims that the city eliminated positions then immediately advertised them when in fact they probably just didn’t immediately update the website.
While the personal information for the people who lost the jobs is public record, I think it’s pretty bad form for city to publish their names, ages, salaries etc. internally to the remaining staff. I’m sure in their case it had to be done to head off rumors.
However I find it inexcusable that the Tallahassee Reporter would then take what Imassume is a leaked document and publish it online without at least redacting the names.
This is fake news, and it’s just another petty purely political attack based on BS. It’s fake news.
Donald Trump is that you?
Probably emails from HRC
Could voter corruption play a part in why the citizenry of Tallahassee keep electing candidates and incumbents that are obviously looking out for themselves first? That includes KD for those who think she is such an upstanding individual. Really?! Could you have gotten the deal on that house?
City Hall should be razed and all those there should be kicked out. For those COT employees that think they are not to blame, they work hard and play buy the rules – you knew what was going on! COT is like a small family and everyone knows who the bad guys are.
To stick your head in the sand and pretend you saw or knew nothing has cost taxpayers thousands and thousands of dollars and helped prop up the corruption. In this day and age there is no excuse for looking the other way. So if you end up unemployed and find out you were actually replaced, you have no one to blame but yourselves.
I am probably whistling in the wind because I don’t imagine those folks read Tallahassee Reports.
I guess that will teach the rest of those upstart city employees to complain or bring attention to a problem. Better keep your mouths shut or else!
Tallahassee and Leon County Commissioners’ List of
top-priority agenda items for the 2017-2018 fiscal year:
1. Us
2. Us
3. Us
Now please close that door, we’re busy.
Speaking of underground utilities, I saw at its worst, TS Emily knocked out power to 18,000 central/south Floridians today.
And how many Tallahasseans lost power on “Hurricane” (because it was downgraded to a tropical storm when it hit Tallahassee) Hermine? Over 70,000!
I guess it really comes down to the moral compass that apparently people at City Hall are lacking. As a public employee one has to follow the law, do nothing illegal or immoral, and remember that citizens and tax payers are who we work for.
You would think with an ongoing FBI investigation, that $ 35,000.00 legal team would advise our beloved Mayor, Commissioners and Managers that firing people for budgetary reasons is going to raise a few eyebrows. Posting those positions as open less than a week later is bound to draw the attention of those previously mentioned pesky investigators. The entire Commission, Management team and Ethics Board has to go. I’d suggest they resign, but that would resemble an act of dignity and honor. Don’t think I’ll hold my breath waiting for any of them to do that.
Maybe we should build a chicken coop!!!
It doesn’t appear that the new city manager is an improvement over the prior one.
He is worse!Scott pushed for Rick and he definitely needs to go with the city attorney and ethics officer!
You just can’t make this stuff up!!!! Unbelievable!!!
Who knows? Maybe they have friends they plan to give these jobs to.
Ok I am not a Mayor Gillum fan…in fact I hope he gets run out of office but I get pretty sick and tired of all the lemmings blaming it on Mayor Gilliam for anything that could be wrong. Hey maybe’ they are crappy employees that need to be fired! It is not the mayors job to protect somebody else’s job when they are performing. So silly. If you want to attack the mayor then ask him about his inability to manage to a level one hurricane or bring 10,000 Syrians in the Tallahassee or except campaign contributions from Nazis.
A couple of things…first, I can understand your perspective, but he is a “leadership” mayor and he is paid accordingly. His pay is double of a commissioner and with it comes additional responsibilities. Could there be poor employees? Of course, it goes without saying in any organization the size of the City there will be poor employees. The issue is the stated reasons for firing or laying off all of those employees was budget cutbacks. Of course, the City has way too many assistant city managers making way too much money and it wastes money on things senior staff and Commissioners want to do, but that is another story. Second, Mayor Gillum has been a horrid mayor and the city has continued its downward spiral after too many years of John Marks doing the same things which the FBI has zeroed in on of late. Who knows, maybe his old case files will be glanced at again.
Oh, and then there’s the possibility of a little age discrimination in the firings. Just saying, that line has been often repeated in recent days.
One thing is for sure:
The local rag won’t write about this, since they’ve done the exact same thing dozens of times to their former journalists. Axed longtime veterans, more than I could ever count, between 2005-2015, and hired newbies fresh out of college for 40-50 cents on the dollar.
Or less.
It’s a right-to-work state.
And it’s the Gannett way!
And if you subscribe, you’ve validated this treatment of your fellow citizens.
I personally know of city employees who were fired. These same individuals had filed complaints with the city and had sought help from Andrew Gillum to correct unfair actions by city manager Fernandez! The mayor was too busy or unwilling to meet with these staff when they were in crisis. And now, some of these individuals have been fired! Andrew if you’re unwilling to protect your employees then you need to find a different career. Hopefully the voters in conjunction with the FBI will facilitate your career change!
Yet Adam Corey invites him to “tappas & drinks” at The Edison and he gladly accepted! Joke may be on him!