Kevin, over at BlogHouston, caught this article at 740 KTRH.
City controller Annise Parker says indications are that the payments just fell through the cracks within City Hall bureaucracy. She say [sic] part of the problem may be that Houston currently has three different methods of approving bonuses.
Now, I’m aware of two. One is to game the base pay, as I explained before. The other is the simplified Performance Pay system we saw used in Bonusgate. But what is the third? That I don’t know.
Still, the part that caught my eye was the blurb. Assuming it’s not been rendered as inaccurately as a Chronicle headline (or constitutional analysis), it seems to suggest that perhaps HR was not bypassed after all.
Some $130,000 in bonuses for four Houston employees appear to have been approved by at least three separate city departments.
The four offices involved would be the Mayor Pro Tem’s office, HR, F&A/Payroll, and the Controller’s office. Assuming the MP-T’s office doesn’t count here, that leaves three, which means the bonuses did go through Human Resources, at least part of the time. Curiouser and curioser.
But stay tuned for an early post tomorrow; I just discovered that two of my favorite subjects of late have something in common: each other.
Edit: unfortunately, I’ve been bitten on the butt by computer problems again. There will be a delay of about 24 hours. Sorry all. 🙁
Update 2/22: The bonus payments bypassed HR. But the $21k in permanent raises went through the usual channel.
Well the further you dig in to this pile of dung the smellier it gets.
Why are there never any hard questions asked by local reporters? Why arent open records requests being made for all the documents from Alverado’s office and the MPT office? Why were only the computers from the MPT’s office seized- and not Alverado’s herself? I heard they never touched her office. There’s got to be more paper trails out there! If they are actually doing a full investigation into this, I don’t see how the computers they did seize were returned the next day by the OIG Department as reported by the Chronicle? “workers using computers with OIG department tags on them”, or something to that effect. How thorough can that be??? It seems that as Alverado said, something stinks here. And it does. I smell coverup. Why arent reporters talking to those doing the investigation at the OIG Department to get some insight into what’s going on? Word is that the Mayor and others at higher levels are controlling what is looked at and who is investigated (safeguarding Alverado). Don’t talk to the bosses- talk to the workers doing the work….dig a little. Talk to the payroll clerks and others processing paperwork. We have always had WEAK journalists here in Houston when it comes to questioning city hall or political “leaders”. No one will ask hard questions or dig a little. Remember that Mayor Brown wrote himself and his staff “blank checks” and walked out the door with impunity? No questions of any substance asked by reporters. The reality is that bonuses have been handed-out like candy to council staff. It was so commonplace that who could expect anyone to question it after that long? I assume that this all will be swept under the rug…. scapegoats will be named and Alverado will walk. Who’s laying odds?
I’m definately not taking the other end of that bet. That’s what I’ve been saying too.
As for the computers though, I don’t see an issue. Yank the hard drives, then hand the boxes back. Review at lesiure. Whomever handles IT for the council offices would have to replace the HD’s, reload all the software, and reset all the network/e-mail crap. Four systems, a few hours max for a top-notch properly set up staff dedicated to rolling out systems. Even generalists without all the right tools shouldn’t take more than a day or two. 🙂