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Barrow i Journal
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Vol. 1 No. 16
22 PAGES 3 SECTIONS
Wednesday, February 11,2009
A publication of MainStreet Newspapers, Inc. WINDER, BARROW COUNTY GEORGIA 30680 256 COPY
•Local attorney dedi
cated to family, commu
nity
page 1C
•BOC discusses depu
ties pay
page 2A
•Bioscience facility
could cost $180 million
page 2A
Opinions:
•Bridges: Ordinance
in Statham one to be
followed
page 4A
•Crawford: The bomb
shell of the session
page 4A
•Person: Reading the
Classics
page 5A
Sports:
•WBHS boys capture
subregion title
page 1B
•Region 8-AAAA tour
ney begin
page 1B
•Local soccer teams
set for new campaigns
pages 3-4B
Also Inside:
•Church News
page 5B
•Letters to the Editor
page 5A
•Public Safety
pages 6-8A
•Obituaries
pages 4-5C
To subscribe,
call today:
770-867-NEWS
(6397).
The Barrow
Journal is
delivered
every
Thursday.
Rocky start: Three officials depart
BY SUSAN NORMAN
The start of Danny Yearwood’s
career as chairman of the Barrow
County Board of Commissioners has
been unusually rocky.
In the past week, the county's top
two administrators and the director
of planning and development have
resigned.
The final day at work for Keith
Lee, chief administrator, is Friday.
The final day of assistant adminis
trator Michael Fischer is Feb. 20.
And planning director Guy Flerring
is already gone.
The managers did not explain in
their resignation letters their reasons
for leaving the county’s employ
ment. But from the first week of
Yearwood’s administration, when he
bypassed county administrators and
department heads by meeting directly
with all of the county's employees
in two meetings Jan. 7, it was clear
that a new era had arrived in county
government.
At public commission meetings in
January, a couple of the board’s new
members asked Lee pointed ques
tions concerning the county's finan
ces. The final straw appeared to be
last week when District 3 commissio
ner Steve Worley privately requested
a letter from a 2005 consultant con
cerning the county’s implementation
of his compensation study for Barrow
County's government. That letter sta
ted that those who did the study never
suggested the county aggressively
implement a new pay schedule by
giving employees large raises over a
short period of time.
Both Lee and Fischer said in emails
Friday, Jan. 30, that the board of com
missioners in October 2005 approved
their plan to allow department heads
YEARWOOD
to give employees raises of up to
the midpoints of each positions' new
salary range, which resulted in rai
ses of thousands of dollars for most
employees within a year or two of
the study.
But Lee submitted his resignatioi
on 8 a.m. the next business day -
Monday, Feb. 2 - and did not responc
to a request for an interview abou
his resignation. Then on Thursday
Feb. 5, Fischer presented his letter o
resignation to Lee.
Neither administrator met witl
Yearwood prior to making his deci
sion to quit. However, once the}
told him their plans, he didn't asl
either to reconsider. Yearwood did
however, call a press conference tfu
day after Fischer's resignation to tr\
to quiet rumors that had reportedl}
been running rampant among count}
employees shaken by the loss of Lee
by their recent across-the-board pa}
cuts and by the board’s vote to hav«
Yearwood look into a new pay study
Yearwood said he would personall}
oversee projects Lee and Fischer hat
been handling.
Dramatic scene
WBHS PERFORMERS
Members of the Winder-Barrow High School one-act play performed at
the Colleen O. Williams Theatre. Cast members performed “An Actor’s
Nightmare” which centers George Spelvin, an accountant who has a night
mare about being in several different plays that he has never rehearsed so he
tries to improv all his lines. Photo by Jessica Brown
Barrow schools show moderate
grade inflation compared to state
Grade inflation in the
Barrow County School
System appears to be mod
erate compared to statewide
numbers, according to a
recent study of the issue.
A study done by
Christopher Clark of the
Department of Economics
and Finance at Georgia
College & State University
on Georgia high school
grading compared student
achievement in the class
room vs. the same student’s
results on the End of Course
Test test.
Clark said there were
“considerable grading dis
parities” across the state
and that “some schools and
school systems appear to
be inflating course grades
relative to EOCT scores
considerably while others
appear to hold their students
to higher standards.”
In Barrow County, Clark’s
study shows that the gap
between those who failed
the End of Course Test in
several high school subjects
and those who failed actual
classroom work was, for the
most part, not as wide as the
overall state disparity.
Clark compared eight
subjects across the state
with individual student per
formance both in the class
room and on the EOCT. The
results of the study show
that some school systems
are apparently inflating
grades, giving students A-B
grades at a high rate but
who also have high failure
rates of those students.
In B arrow County, the wid
est gap in student achieve
ment was in Economics
where 37 percent of Barrow
students failed the EOCT,
but only nine percent failed
in the class.
Barrow’s smallest gap
was in Algebra 1 where
there was a zero percent gap
with 12 percent of students
failing both the EOCT and
in the class.
continued on page 9A
Tough times: 28
cut from Winder
Foreclosures hit
new high mark
BY SUSAN NORMAN
Winder's cash-strapped city govern
ment last week laid off 28 employees.
Twenty-three positions were perma
nently eliminated and another seven
employees were laid off, but could be
called back to work when the economy
recovers. The cuts resulted in job losses
for only 28 employees after two code
enforcement officers were transferred to
open positions in the patrol division of
the Winder Police Department.
The staff cuts will save the city about
$1.4 million and correct a monthly defi
cit that has been running from $100,000
to $120,000 a month. Whether the cuts
taken will be enough, city officials
couldn't predict.
continued on page 9A
Foreclosures in Barrow County for the
first three months of 2009 will hit 400 for
the quarter, down slightly from 411 in the
last quarter of 2008. But the single-month
record is being eclipsed with March sale
date foreclosures of 158 in Barrow County.
That is one more than the previous high of
157 in October 2008.
Year to year, foreclosures for the first
quarter of 2009 are up 27 percent over the
first quarter of 2008, from 314 last year to
400 this year.
Barrow County Foreclosures
When
2008
2009
•1st Qtr.
314
400
•2nd Qtr.
336
•3rd Qtr.
336
•4th Qtr.
411
Did BOC know
Archer impact?
Review of county records shows
board may not have understood
2005 pay plan ’s overall cost
BY SUSAN NORMAN
Barrow County Board of Commissioners chairman Danny
Yearwood defended the county’s departing top two administra
tors over how they implemented a controversial pay plan at a
hastily called press conference Friday.
“If they made a choice to implement it like they did, it was
voted on by the board (of commissioners),” Yearwood said.
Yearwood’s defense of departing chief administrator Keith
Lee and assistant administrator Michael Fischer, both of whom
resigned last week, was echoed by former BOC chairman Doug
Garrison, who attended the press conference and spoke to
reporters after it was over.
Garrison said he knew what was in the now-controversial
2005 Archer pay study and understood its financial impact on
the county. Both Yearwood and Garrison blamed the economy
on the county’s budget problems, not how leaders handled the
pay study.
“It was something they decided to do and it worked until our
economy (began the downturn),” Yearwood said Friday.
But a review of the public record surrounding how the pay
plan was handled paints a more complex and confusing picture.
Based on an audio recording of a Nov. 2, 2005 Barrow BOC
meeting, it appears detailed data about the impact of the pay
study was not provided to all BOC members at the time the
pay scales were voted on. And at least one BOC member made
comments at that meeting which now appear to have been a
prophetic warning about the impact of the pay increases on the
county's bottom line.
PAGES MISSING
FROM BOARD BOOK
On the recording, which was obtained from the County
Clerk’s office under the Georgia Open Records Act, then-
District 3 commissioner Roger Wehunt complained that BOC
members had not received full copies of the Archer pay study
prior to the board's unanimous vote on Oct. 11, 2005 to adopt
its pay scales. The pay study information was made available
at that November 2005 meeting, which sparked Wehunt’s ques
tions.
“Why didn’t we get this report that Dr. Archer sent?” Wehunt
demanded at the meeting.
Reportedly, the BOC board packet had pages missing at the
Oct. 2005 meeting that listed each employee by department and
what it would cost for each salary to be brought up to “mini
mum” and “midpoint” under the new pay scale. Also missing
was the final page that listed the cost of full implementation of
the new pay plan: A total of $332,994 to bring employees to the
new “minimum” salaries, and $2.9 million to bring everyone
to the pay scales' “midpoints.” Those increases did not include
additional costs for open county positions, or for new the posi
tions created after a second Archer study on staffing levels was
done a few months later.
“There’s some raises in there that's more than a lot of folks in
the county makes,” Wehunt said. “That's not right. Once it's in
place, nobody can stop it. How you going to stop it?”
At the meeting, Wehunt called on the BOC to delay setting
the millage rate until after his questions could be addressed.
“If the board of commissioners don't stand up tonight and
stop this tonight, it will never get stopped, and you know that,
and the rest of you know it,” Wehunt charged.
Garrison told Wehunt at the meeting that there was no attempt
to hide any information from board members prior to the vote
on the study. He said the pages about individual raises had
been excluded from the board packets for the Oct. 11 meeting
in order to protect the “privacy” of employees since the board
document was a matter of open record. Garrison said meetings
would be held the following week to address commissioners’
concerns. Apparently, no such meetings were ever held, accord
ing to those involved at the time.
continued on page 9A
