From the KNS comments: “The county does not have employment contracts. No county employee has a contract, not matter how high their position.”

That was the first thing I thought of when reading the story. How hard would it have been for the reporter to have asked? If you are handed a story about somebody receiving questionable payment, it should dawn on somebody to ask whether it’s legal or not.

It is either bad form or a legal problem. KNS should help readers determine.

in my opinion, this was a nice parting gift to ensure additional silence and no comments associated with the disparaging nature of the Ragsdale administration. What started as a tremendous opportunity to an abundance of optimism is buried in scandal, divorce, empty rainy day fund, underfunded pension, economic stagnation, underfunded school systems, and an abundance of form over substance. We all thought Bill Haslam was going to have a tough time as mayor of Knoxville, but in reality, he'll be the next governor of Tennessee and Mike Ragsdale will have to lean on longtime associates in the electrical contracting business for a job, health insurance, possibly a car, and football tickets to see a team as mired in mediocrity and irrelevance as Mike Ragsdale is now. How can he show his face in this town is beyond me.

I would classify Dupes as a political appointee, but would have thought Frank and Wuethrich are civil servants.
Do they "serve at the pleasure of the mayor" as well?

Frank, Wuethrich and Dupes were fired - "resigning" employees don't get severance. All three were on Mayor-elect Burchett's Those I Can Do Without list for assorted reasons. Ragsdale did the incoming mayor a favor.

LVG

Frank, Wuethrich and Dupes were fired

That was my guess, as far as how it would show up on county records. Whether it was voluntary or not, whatever.

They were all notified by lobster-gram.

How so Larry? It would seem to me just the opposite.

Ragsdale spared Burchett an unpleasant task.

LVG

What's the deal with Frank? I seem to recall that he wasn't happy about Burchett's remarks that there would not be a new downtown library on his watch, or something like that. Is that it? By all accounts he is highly qualified and was doing a pretty good job.

From today’s more thorough article, it appears no policy was broken.

Not because that which was done was within policy guidelines, it’s because there is no policy.

If Smith wants to do something besides make hay, he should write one.

Burchett didn't want to do the deed. Ragsdale did him a favor. You'd have to ask Ragsdale what his motives were.

LVG

Metro Pulse: Will Burchett Privatize the Library?

How does one privatize the free circulation of books? I think Burchett will calm down the library system ... emphasizing materials and access rather than monuments and fancy staff.

Good move to replace Larry Frank.

Tim's dad volunteered considerable time as a member of the library board. I think it's time for Knox County to revert to the state model, but with more oversight (and term limits) toward board members. -- s.

Mistyped. Meant fancy buildings .... not fancy staff.

Now the Law Director is saying Ragsdale had no authority to negotiate these severance packages.

Two things concern me about this:

• How can these three be treated the same? Weuthrich in particular has been working for Knox Co almost 30 years
• Does it matter whether you resigned or got fired when it comes to collecting unemployment?

It's fairly obvious this was a resign-or-get-fired situation, at least for Dupes and Frank. If resigning made them ineligible for unemployment compensation, they just got doubly screwed.

I'm confused, too. If there's nothing that says Ragsdale couldn't do it and it's not prohibited by any statute how can they reverse him?

According to the law director's memo courtesy of WATE, he is basing his recommendation on something called the Dillon Rule, which says that absent any specific granting of a power to a local government the local government is not considered to have that power and that Tennessee courts have historically ruled this way. He also cites an IRS rule saying severance pay has to be spelled out in the county charter.

(link...)

Law director: Ex-Knox employees must sue if they want payout » Knoxville News Sentinel:

KNOXVILLE - Three former top ranking Knox County employees who resigned last week but received a combined $78,000 in severance packages will have to sue if they want the money.

I don't see the basis for that in the article or in the law director's memo. I suppose that could be a logical conclusion.

I said: "One of Mike Donila's previous KNS stories said only that 17 former county employees had received severence pay during Ragsdale's tenure, but Mike didn't comment on the practices of Ragsdale's predecessors. I therefore asked him in today's comment thread whether he might look into that for readers."

Oh...and I asked Mike what practice other municipalities follow WRT severence pay, too.

The Wiki entry on "Dillon's Rule," cited by Jarret as the primary basis for his opinion, leaves me confused as to its applicablity in determining our county mayor's authority--or lack thereof--to grant an employee severance pay.

Wiki seems to suggest that the 1868 Missouri ruling spoke more directly to the extent of state power over municipalities, not to the extent to which a municipality's officers are imbued with powers over matters that are clearly local in nature (and to which the state legislature presumably would not speak, anyway).

So I'm not grasping how Dillon's Rule has any connection whatsoever to this local question at hand? Has someone, somewhere, suggested that only the governor should have the authority to grant a Knox County employee's severance pay?!

See what you think, fellow laypersons...

Dillon's Rule

The theory of state preeminence over local governments was expressed as Dillon’s Rule in an 1868 case: "Municipal corporations owe their origin to, and derive their powers and rights wholly from, the legislature. It breathes into them the breath of life, without which they cannot exist. As it creates, so may it destroy. If it may destroy, it may abridge and control. Clinton v Cedar Rapids and the Missouri River Railroad,(24 Iowa 455; 1868). As opposed to Dillon's Rule, the Cooley Doctrine expressed the theory of an inherent right to local self determination. In a concurring opinion, Michigan Supreme Court Judge Thomas M. Cooley in 1871 stated: “[L]ocal government is a matter of absolute right; and the state cannot take it away.” People v. Hurlbut, (24 Mich 44, 95; 1871).

In Municipal Corporations (1872), Dillon explained that in contrast to the powers of states, which are unlimited but for express restrictions under the state or federal constitution, municipalities only have the powers that are expressly granted to them.[2] This formulation of the scope of municipal power came to be known as the "Dillon Rule," which states that municipal governments only have the powers that are expressly granted to them by the state legislature, those that are necessarily implied from that grant of power, and those that are essential and indispensable to the municipality's existence and functioning. Any ambiguities in the legislative grant of power should be resolved against the municipality so that its powers are narrowly construed. However, when the state has not specifically directed the method by which the municipality may implement its granted power, the municipality has the discretion to choose the method so long as its choice is reasonable.

Hundreds of U.S. court decisions to the present day have employed the Dillon Rule to determine the scope of municipal powers and rights. Critics of the Rule have argued that it imposes unreasonable constraints on the ability of communities to govern themselves and so undermines democracy, and even that local self-government is a matter of natural right that does not need to be conferred by higher political structures. It has also been suggested that Dillon's approach derived from the contemporary view that cities were inherently corrupt political organs. This was perhaps an often well-deserved judgment during his time, especially considering the extensive business ties and even investments of numerous cities and their leaders in the late 19th century. Deviations from the Dillon Rule remain in the minority, however, despite the significant decrease in the public perception of municipal corruption.

The Supreme Court of the United States cited Municipal Corporations and fully adopted Dillon's emphasis on state power over municipalities in Merrill v. Monticello, 138 U.S. 673 (1891), reaff'd. Hunter v. Pittsburgh, 207 U.S. 161 (1907), which upheld the power of Pennsylvania to consolidate two cities against the wishes of the majority of the residents in one. The Court's ruling that states could alter or abolish at will the charters of municipal corporations without infringing upon contract rights heavily relied upon Dillon's separation of public, municipal corporations from private ones.

Pittsburgh Regionalist David Y. Miller argues that Dillon hit upon a central paradox defining American cities: having great political authority while having little legal legitimacy. He quotes Dillon as calling municipalities "mere tenants at will of their respective state legislatures" which could be "eliminated by the legislature with a stroke of the pen." And yet, Dillon also said that eliminating local government would be "so great a folly, and so great a wrong."

(link...)

This place has a lot of people with a lot of time on their hands. Are any of you lawyers? Or do you just pretend to be on blogs? Jarrett is a lawyer. And apparently a good one.

Don't think we've built monuments? Check out Fountain City, Halls and Powell. They've got a couple of things in common -- no drive-up access for book return and a front door nowhere near the parking lot.

Larry Frank only had a hand in Powell, I believe, and it's the best of the three.

The community rooms at Fountain City and Halls are so small that it's unclear why they even bothered. -- s.