{"id":18965,"date":"2013-08-29T09:26:13","date_gmt":"2013-08-29T13:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/?p=18965"},"modified":"2013-08-29T09:26:13","modified_gmt":"2013-08-29T13:26:13","slug":"fiscal-responsibility-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/?p=18965","title":{"rendered":"Fiscal Responsibility!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Following up on the NC governor's awesome display of <a href='https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/18894\/fiscal-responsibility\/'>fiscal responsibility<\/a>, in which two twenty-four year old staffers from our awesome new Governor's election campaign were awarded cushy government jobs with inflated salaries...<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsobserver.com\/2013\/08\/28\/3143909\/jobs-for-highly-paid-mccrory-staffers.html#storylink=cpy\">Gov. Pat McCrory says<\/a> a pair of 24-year-old campaign staffers landed senior-level jobs in his administration <strong>because they were the most qualified applicants<\/strong>, beating out older candidates.<\/p>\n<p>But the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, where Matthew McKillip and Ricky Diaz got big promotions and raises after only a few weeks of government service,<strong> has been unable to provide any evidence their positions were ever advertised to other potential applicants or that other candidates were considered<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>In response to a public records request from The Associated Press, the state agency indicated there were no job postings or written skill requirements for the high-paying positions awarded to the young Republicans.<\/p>\n<p>McKillip, the chief policy adviser to DHHS Secretary Aldona Wos, is paid an annual salary of $87,500. Diaz makes $85,000 a year as the communications director for the massive state agency, which has about 10,000 employees and an annual budget of more than $18 billion.<\/p>\n<p>The two positions are exempted from the hiring rules and procedures governing most state jobs, including that they be publicly advertised.<\/p>\n<p>McKillip received a nearly 35 percent raise after only three months on the job, while Diaz got a 37 percent boost. <strong>The big raises came despite a March 8 directive the governor sent to state agencies to freeze salary increases<\/strong>, limit purchases and reduce travel to help cover shortfalls in state Medicaid funding.<\/p>\n<p>McCrory insists McKillip and Diaz got their positions on merit, not politics.<\/p>\n<p>\"They got promotions,\" McCrory, a Republican, said in an Aug. 15 interview with WNCN-TV in Raleigh. \"They were actually moved over to areas that frankly a lot of older people applied for, too. <strong>But frankly, these two young people are very well qualified and they are being paid for jobs at which that's the pay rate for that job<\/strong>.\"<\/p>\n<p>A review of job descriptions for similar government positions posted online by the Office of State Personnel show<strong> McKillip and Diaz don't meet the academic or experience requirements to qualify for even entry-level positions in the areas they now oversee. Their pay also exceeds the listed maximums for the most senior listed positions<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Heckofajob, Pat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Following up on the NC governor's awesome display of fiscal responsibility, in which two twenty-four year old staffers from our awesome new Governor's election campaign were awarded cushy government jobs with inflated salaries... Gov. Pat McCrory says a pair of 24-year-old campaign staffers landed senior-level jobs in his administration because they were the most qualified [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18965\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}