Knox County Commissioner Larsen Jay’s attempt to change the Merit System for the Knox County Sheriff’s employees is a solution without a problem, in my experience as a Merit Council member (a few many years ago) and observer and video recorder of the four meetings that consumed about 10 hours of time in November, December 2020 and January 2021.
Merit System, Knox Sheriffs Office “kumbaya” Meeting on 12/1/2020
One of the real problems that needs a solution by Sheriff Tommy Spangler is that (according to my reliable sources) since September 1, 2018 when Spangler became Sheriff 316 employees have left the department. I am told that by the end of next week, 3 more will quit, bringing the number to 319.
How does 319 relate in a department the size of the Sheriffs Department?
Joint Education Committee Chair, Knox County School Board Member Evetty Satterfield and Knox County Commissioner Cortney Durrett at the March 24, 2021 Meeting
Yesterday, at the Knox County School Board and Knox County Commission Joint Education Committee meeting it was revealed that the school system hires about 314 new educators a year. 314 of nearly 4,500 educators. That is a department three to four times larger than Knox County Sheriffs Department.
the chart shown during the March 24, 2021 Joint Education Committee about the 7.1% attrition rate of the Knox County Schools
So while the KCSD HR Director Lysette Aviles and the Sheriff would like to have control of many of the Merit System Roles and Responsibilities. They have at 99 problems and the Merit System ain’t one. (Insert musical reference)
Although, based on the Sheriff’s body language leaving the Knox County Commission Work Session on Monday evening it is a source of agitation when it’s not smoothly going the way Ms. Aviles and he want it to be, it seems.
On an unrelated side note: seems like Rudy Bradley all over again. circa: 1990’s
