"The County Administration"

The following information is based on my personal opinion as a result of my experience as a county employee. Although I would not wish this lonely walk through the valley of shadow of employment discrimination on anyone, it is my prayer this brief snapshot of my journey will encourage the reader to conduct a self examination on their lives and personal experience with employment discrimination. Therefore, it is my prayer the Lord will lead and guide you in the event you should ever witness or be required to endure such a journey.

I believe since the inception of it’s creation in 1990 within county government; minorities have been shackled to fewer promotional opportunities towards upper mobility than compared to their white counterparts despite educational credentials and professional experience.

In an effort to confirm my suspicions that more white employees with high school diplomas on average are paid more than African American’s and Hispanics with college degrees in the same job classification, I requested a county public records inquiry in August 31, 2004 for all of the county employees in the areas of ethnicity, gender, job classification, date of hire, salaries, pay grade, and educational credentials. However, on March 31, 2006, in order to directly focus on the core of the problem, I requested the same data from Chairman Linda Chapin’s Administration which began in 1990 as the first Mayor of the Board of County Commissioners for the following positions:

A) Assistant Manager
B) Manager
C) Deputy Director
D) Director
E) Director on the County Administration Level
F) Deputy County Administrator
G) County Administrator

After reviewing the county’s response, it was my understanding the electronic records were only available from the time the Human Resources Management System was installed, which was December 1998. Complete employment history is only available on either microfilm or imaged document records. Since many of the county’s management staff was hired well before 1998, reviewing their history would require researching these data sources.

However in reference to educational levels attained by these employees, up-to-date information regarding educational credentials of all active employees under the Board of County Commissioners is not maintained in their records at this time. Furthermore, the educational level has only been captured for employees hired since December 1998. Even though employees had incentives to acquire a pay increase should they obtain additional educational diplomas, the county stated employees hired before or after 1998 may have simply failed to update their official records.