Kristy Acevedo holds the title of “Network Administrator” for the City of Lampasas. She and her superior, Monica Wright, are paid quite well ($180,000 in salary and benefits – Pay Group 30 for Monica and 22 for Kristy) to “maintain and troubleshoot all network systems and equipment” (this is taken directly from the City of Lampasas description of her job).
The city spends over $300,000 per year on the IT Department and has spent about $1.5 MILLION DOLLARS on that department over the last six years. They are proposing a huge increase to $374,000 this year alone.
So it’s hard to argue they don’t throw enough money at that department. Hell, Monica had enough cash to blow almost $100,000 on a NO-BID audio/visual system for City Council chambers last year, when she COULD have only spent $34,000, so they are clearly rolling in dough. Perhaps I have simply been right all along in saying they are totally unqualified and in way over their heads. Incompetent, is the word I am looking for here.
Employees of the city serve “at will” and can be dismissed at any time [Section 13.01 of the City Personnel Policy]. One of the many reasons for possible dismissal listed is “Incompetence or Neglect of Duty”
Now, this problem hasn’t even been resolved yet, so the finger pointing can wait until our TWO IT ‘experts’ have fixed their mess….but after the dust has settled, it seems City Council should be looking into how this was allowed to happen and whether our Network Administrator was incompetent or neglectful of her duties. Considering how many days off they get per year, there is about a 20% chance one of them wasn’t even at work last Friday!