I am adding this next article because it addresses a main concern that we as correctional officers have had for some time now. Although the department this article is about, has nothing to do with Department of Corrections I want you to note something. The department is exempt from the state Merit Rules and read why.
Delaware State News January 14 2002
Building byte by byte
Tech office starts a new
By Tom Eldred
Senior writer
DOVER - When Gov. Ruth Ann Minner announced last week that she was scrapping a $7.4 million unfinished computer system estimated to cost at least another $7 million to get on line, Thomas M. Jarrett was listening.
"The days of a $4 million project going to an $8 million project are over," Mr. Jarrett said. "That will change. We're doing something nobody has been able to do. We're building a new department from the ground up."
Mr. Jarrett, 50, was hired in August as the state's newest Cabinet secretary. His mission, clearly outlined by Gov. Minner and the General Assembly, is to oversee the transformation of the Office of Information Services into the new Department of Technology and Information.
The job must be completed by midnight June 30, 2003.
OIS was originally created to improve the quality of information technology in Delaware government.
Burden for years by inconsistencies, lack of accountability, cost overruns and inflexible state personnel system, OIS targeted for banishment by a task force Gov. Minner created when she took office.
A final report was delivered in May.
A key recommendation was that OIS be dissolved and an entirely new department created with a unique feature - all employees would be exempt from the state's merit and salary structure system.
The only other state agency with fully exempt employees is the Delaware Economic Development Office.
The report said that under the merit system, OIS was confined and not always able to attract or retain the best and the brightest.
"The average wage for technologist across the country is 76 percent higher than the nation's average wage," the report concluded.
"Employers in Delaware have 44,280 people in IT jobs, with an average wage of almost $68,000. It is very difficult for the state to compete for topnotch technical human resources."
Gov. Minner endorsed the plan and worked to get legislative approval. Senate Bill 215, passed in June, established DTI with "all the powers, duties and functions heretofore vested in the Office of Information Services."
The article goes on to describe how DTI is going to be built. The key statement though is why they want to exempt employees from the merit system. This is the same reason that Correctional Officers have wanted to be exempt, to attract brighter people, to retain officers if we had a competative wage.
