Before exploring how everything is changing, let us begin with the transition buy-outs:
Peduto expects the plan to generate cost savings by eliminating at least one third of the positions of the employees to retire under SIP… The program will cost the city $3,626,168.33 in payouts over the next two years, less than the $4.4 million the Peduto administration originally estimated. (PBT, Tim Schooley)
Skepticism remains whether the savings from trimming staff will really offset payouts… but we have to remember, the Mayor’s logic also was in advantages of transferring and redefining many positions, in going “back to the drawing board” on certain parts of government. It’s hardly personal, it’s just a marker of transition.
That controversy is completed. Next?
The nomination of Ms. Kennedy, who previously headed up the Bureau of Licensing and Inspection in Philadelphia, has troubled some. Though she comes to Pittsburgh with high marks for modernizing the bureau in Philadelphia, she fails to meet the minimum qualifications spelled out in the job description. She is neither a certified architect nor an engineer, and she lacks certification as a building code officer. (P-G, Moriah Balingit)
Previous reporting has Kennedy set to take the state certification test in April.
An architect, or an engineer, or a building code officer. Would a certified architect be certain to possess the knowledges of a building code officer? How about a certified engineer, should we presume they are capable of enforcing building codes? It seems as though the framers of this role at some instant wished to convey, “The Director needs to be qualified, somehow.”
Perhaps City Council should quiz Kennedy from the PA Building Code Officer Test Study Guide. At least there will be right answers.
The real heat that has everyone’s saucepan simmering concerns the Mayor’s settling on a permanent Director of Public Safety, and starting on the process towards a permanent Chief of Police, and hey, maybe the Citizens Police Review Board. Meanwhile, some remember when the post of Public Safety Director was considered a bookkeeping artifact.
And finally, here is the BIG KAHUNA: 45 Next Pittsburgh board appointments and nominees. We shall cover them, one at a time, in the manner of a Rotisserie League Baseball Scouting Handbook. Check back occasionally as our handbook grows. From the top we note that some forms of diversity appear impressive in this administration, while others remain difficult to gauge.
Brenda Smith: The Nine-Mile Run Watershed Association is appropriate to ALCOSAN and its green infrastructure push. Giving $900 to the Peduto campaign over 2011 and 2012 seems modest.
Greg Jones: Economic Development South is apropos from an intergovernmental collaboration perspective, necessary to ALCOSAN. Cannot find any contribution trail, but they’ve walked and talked in Carrick.
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