WAKE COUNTY – Wake County Sheriff Gerald Baker just doesn’t support sanctuary policies like a good Democrat, he apparently spends money like a Democrat too. Bakers’ tenure has been marked by partisan refusals to cooperate with ICE, scandals about old vendettas leading to personally motivated demotions, and now concern over how and how much taxpayer money Sheriff Baker is spending.
From WRAL:
“[…] Following a tip, WRAL Investigates received public records from the county manager’s office detailing budget concerns.
The first memorandum came from Wake County Chief Financial Officer Emily Lucas on July 26. The email outlined several issues that needed correction, including how Sheriff Gerald Baker was offering vendor contracts, sometimes without going through the proper bidding process and without receiving permission to offer a no-bid contract. Supporting documents also raised questions about the sheriff’s office terminating existing contracts without even telling the vendor. […]”
It wasn’t just handing out sloppy vendor contracts, either. Once they started looking, the county manager’s office found den of salary inflation and unqualified promotions all ignoring HR protocols.
Even after they were warned and being reviewed, the Sheriffs office continued racking up new ridiculous personnel issues. For instance, giving retroactive pay raises for new apparent reason, and reclassifying an employee to an unrelated job and then asking for a month in back pay at the higher salary amount.
With a straight face, Sheriff Baker says his goal is “to save taxpayers money” when responding to media inquires about the spending concerns.
The statement from the Wake County Sheriffs Department said:
“Through our discussions with county staff, the Wake County Sheriff’s Office has only one goal in mind – to save the taxpayers money, through the implementation of practices that improve processes, while negotiating contracts that have been identified as unfavorable to the county. The Sheriff’s Office has renegotiated purchasing contracts through updated policies that have saved taxpayers thousands of dollars. […]”
How do you know if taxpayers are saving money, versus another option, if you’re handing out no-big contracts? Maybe common core math can help reconcile the notion of ‘saving taxpayers money’ with arbitrarily inflating staff salaries.
With Wake County being such a juggernaut economically, that taxpayer provided budget every year is more than $100 million dollars. You’d think they could afford to pay the phone and light bill so they can call ICE and hold on to a criminal illegal alien for them an extra day, but then again the new sheriff terminated the senior well-check program over alleged resource constraints. Maybe all this sloppy Democrat spending and leadership is making it hard for the county law enforcement to address the citizens’ actual public safety priorities.
Read more here.
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