March 7, 2007 One County Paycheck Is Enough

Finally!

It's not a bird, it's not a plane, it's HB 0433.

*HB0433 by *DuBois, *McDaniel.
County Government- Disqualifies county employees from serving on county legislative body;
current members are exempted. Amends TCA Title 5, Chapter 5, Part 1.

SB0880 by *Ketron, *Black, *Burchett, *Crowe, *Johnson, *McNally, *Stanley, *Tracy, *Watson, *Woodson. This is the companion Senate version of the bill.

This commonsense legislation would prohibit county employees from being elected to the county commission.

Sounds very straight-forward. I support it. It will help get rid of at least one type of conflict of interest on county commissions.

Since there is an exemption for current members of a county legislative body, the bill, if passed, would not affect Hamblen County Commissioner Frank Parker.

Frank is a county employee (Director of Cherokee Park) and recently ran for and was elected to the Hamblen County Commission. Frank gets two paychecks from the county each month--a commissioner paycheck and a county employee paycheck.

In Knox County, several of the commissioners (both elected ones and recently appointed ones) get two paychecks from Knox County each month---a commissioner paycheck and an employee paycheck.

Some of the two-paycheck commissioners in Knox, Hamblen, Shelby, and other counties across the state abstain from voting on their own budget, salaries, and raises.

Others vote on the budget, salaries, and raises for their own departments ---right after they cross their fingers and announce publicly that, yes, they have a conflict of interest but that, no, the conflict won't affect their vote!