Lally not lollygagging

Here in the patch, we don't know the meaning of life, or even why the Pittsburgh Penguins got bounced from the NHL playoffs by the Philadelphia Flyers. But we do know that if you are sick, you should listen to the doctor, and that the sudden clunking sound from your car's transmission is best diagnosed by a good mechanic.

So we took great interest when Fayette County controller Sean Lally threw a big monkey wrench into the plan of Fayette County commissioners Vince Zapotosky and Al Ambrosini to give a $2,600 pay raise to the new county chief clerk-in-waiting before she even works one day on the job.

The job is already on the books with a $32,064 starting salary, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that Zapotosky and Ambrosini, who voted April 17 to hire Herald-Standard.com reporter Amy Revak for the job, would like to throw some extra cash her way before she accepts the position.

Revak, you will recall, has absolutely zero experience in accounting or finance, which are key skills for anyone who would be expected to help devise and manage the county's multi-million-dollar budget.

Zapotosky and Ambrosini may be willing to gloss over the big gaps in Revak's resume when it comes to the job they wish to put her in. But Lally, who knows a thing or three about accouting and budgets, clearly isn't afraid to point them out, as he did in Wednesday's Tribune-Review story, "Fayette OKs public works post, unofficially":

http://triblive.com/news/fayette/1163924-74/salary-meeting-revak-board-ambrosini-commissioners-position-zapotosky-zimmerlink-accounting

Lally wanted to keep the starting salary at $32,064 because Revak, who has a bachelor's degree in English, lacks accounting education and experience. He said the $34,600 figure is slightly less than the salary of an employee in his office who has four years' experience and a degree in accounting.

Lally said his employee, who would provide Revak with the figures needed to prepare the budget, would then be "making a whopping $1,300 a year more, with four years' experience and a four-year degree in accounting.
Every resident of Fayette County should read those two paragraphs very closely. Then they should ask themselves two questions:

1. Why would Zaptosky and Ambrosini want to hire someone to manage the county budget if that person lacks accounting education and experience?

2. Why would a chief clerk with no accounting background (who would basically serve as a fiscal figurehead) deserve $2,600 more if an employee already working in the conroller's office is simply going to provide all the figures needed to prepare the budget?

That raise didn't happen at this week's salary board meeting, because Lally wouldn't play ball.

But there is another paragraph in the Trib story that should also be digested by all residents:

(Commissioner Angela) Zimmerlink said that leaves commissioners with two ways to set Revak's salary - via a memo signed by at least two commissioners and then ratified during a commissioners' meeting, she said, or by waiting until the next commissioners' meeting in May to allow all three commissioners to vote on it before it is approved.

Either of those moves would appear, on face value, to remove controller Lally from the equation. These two methods would let Zapotosky and Ambrosini outvote (or out-sign) only Zimmerlink.

Does anyone besides us get the gnawing feeling that all those election-time promises about "running the county like a business" are starting to ring very, very hollow?