BOP funds

[macsout]

Is everyone hearing the crying and moaning from the Wardens about money issues?

[VIMshooter]

The money is tight, but once again, there is year end spending funds. Next fiscal year, who knows because it is an election year. If McCain gets in, the BOP may fair OK, but our Director may come from the outside - Arapajo County Arizon possibly. Your wardens may also be political employees or should I say, appointees. If Obama gets in, not so good. He will out source most gov't jobs as his opinion of gov't employees is that we are all lazy. He'll bring more competion to our agency in that CCA and GEO will have a shot at mediums and possibly MDC's and MCC's. If you take a look already, CCA is going to land the Vegas MDC contract.

The whole political thing is a no win. We'll just ride it out.

[USPBOB]

Shooter, i don't know where your getting your info. It's just the opposite McClain is for more contracting out, along with the "pay for performance" type of civil service worker. Where as Obama is more for getting rid of the government contractors. We as government workers need to hope Obama is elected or see 4 more years of the Bush type of budgets.

[macsout]

I wasn't looking for a political debate, moreover, I'm hearing friends from other institutions state that they are not seeing the crunch and our place begs for funding for a light bulb. Thanks.

['Tude]

If anything, an Obama presidency will bring higher pay for BOP employees. We had our biggest pay raises under Clinton.

[fx1]

It's been the same for the last seven or eight years - Crying poverty from October 1 through August 15. Then it's like "here is $200K. Spend it in the next two weeks."

Look at how much useless crap is purchased by your institution. I only need so many jackets.

This is the problem - you have managers who are too afraid to manage. They don't want to deal with a problem They don't want to offend anyone. But at the end of the year it is the loaves and the fishes.

Just think that if we had these "found" funds throughout the year how much easier, or should I say smoother things would run. But then again how would Wardens get new office furniture every year or at the least a nice HD flat screen for their conference room or a SES promotion

[shakedownshorti]

Originally Posted by macsout

Is everyone hearing the crying and moaning from the Wardens about money issues?

I never knew they quit!!!

[KBCraig]

Moaning about the budget is nothing new. The thing to remember is that there isn't a budget, there are many simultaneous budgets.

We don't have a dime for hospital OT right now other than town trips (and they use straight time whenever possible). But in a total reversal from normal practice, we've paid department OT for Custody to fill the roster (at least three shifts this week, that I know of).

We don't have money for any mechanical system upgrades... except we've just received $300,000 to buy a trash truck, some compactors, and 8 containers. (Our trash contract went from $8k/mo. to $14k/mo. on a month-to-month basis, and the lowest bids for a five year contract had a built-in increase to $18-20k before the end of the contract. We can have a camp driver haul it to the landfill as needed for a lot less.)

We're scheduled for a big energy audit that will cost many thousands to conduct. And based on that, we'll receive big bucks to do many of the things any GL-7 hack could recommend without paying for the audit: faucets that automatically shut off; that crazy new-fangled invention called insulation; covering the flat roofs with peaked roofs to reduce solar gain (and collecting rainwater for non-potable use like flushing toilets); applying u-factor film to all windows (solar gain, again); taking advantage of our hundreds of acres and high water table to drill geothermal heat pump loops to replace the evaporative chillers; taking advantage of that high solar gain (sound familiar? this is Texas!) to provide hot water... etc., etc.

But, according to the warden, we will do all those things after paying for the audit that tells us we should, and they'll give us a buttload of cash to pay for them, which we'll then "repay" by our monthly energy savings.

[bkmaxvrb]

Originally Posted by macsout

Is everyone hearing the crying and moaning from the Wardens about money issues?

Only for the last 13 - 14 years or so. Like Shorti said...When did they ever stop?

[KBCraig]

Originally Posted by 'Tude

If anything, an Obama presidency will bring higher pay for BOP employees. We had our biggest pay raises under Clinton.

Ummm, "We" denotes a certain year range. Most of our employees only worked a year or two under Clinton, if that.

Here is where I found the annual pay raises for federal employees (click the download link for a small .PDF file). It shows raises by the year they took effect, so you have to add one to align them with the president who presided when the raises were passed. In other words, the first year under Reagan (who took office in 1981) would be 1982 on this chart.

That's a good place to start, given how few of our employees have 26 years of seniority. Here goes:

1982: 4.0%
1983: 0.0%
1984: 4.0%
1985: 3.5%
1986: 0.0%
1987: 3.0%
1988: 2.0%
1989: 4.1% (Reagan eight year average: 2.6% per year)
1990: 3.6%
1991: 4.1%
1992: 4.2%
1993: 3.7% (George Bush eight year average: 3.9% per year)
1994: 4.0%
1995: 2.6%
1996: 2.4%
1997: 3.0%
1998: 2.9%
1999: 3.6%
2000: 4.8%
2001: 3.7% (Bill Clinton eight year average: 2.9% per year)
2002: 4.6%
2003: 4.1%
2004: 4.1%
2005: 3.5%
2006: 3.1%
2007: 2.2%
2008: 3.5% (George W. Bush seven year (so far) average: 3.6% per year)

Don't get me wrong, I despise both major parties. I've disavowed the Republicans, although I've voted for them far more often than Democrats. It's just not true that we had better raises under Clinton; we had far better raises under both Bushes, and Clinton was only slightly better than Reagan. (Issues like FLRA, etc., are a different matter worthy of all due consideration.)

Those of you who were here for the 1995 shutdown will recall that it was all blamed on Newt Gingrich being petty, and the new GOP majority refusing to pass a budget. That was a flat-out lie: the GOP-controlled House and Senate passed multiple budgets, and Clinton vetoed all of them.

We were told how it was all Newt's fault that our holiday annual leave was canceled that year, and that those employees who didn't get paid could blame the Republicans. The truth was that then-president of AFGE, John Sturdivant, met with Clinton and agreed to let federal employees be furloughed without pay, because the media spin was in their favor.

It worked: the Republicans were portrayed as petty and evil, willing to shut down the federal government over a perceived slight. Bill Clinton, who had horrible popularity numbers and was presumed to be a lame duck due to Travelgate, HillaryHealthCaregate, and a general opinion that he was weak, incompetent, and corrupt, rode the publicity to victory over Bob Dole in the '96 election.

Okay, enough rambling through the annals of political science. My point is, don't automatically buy into the notion that Democrats are our friends and Republicans are our enemies. How's that worked out for Jesse Jackson and the black constituency?