Nassau County Crime Lab

[I_Love_LI_but]

Originally Posted by Goodnight

Can you believe this? I think this might be a good place for the county to start looking for savings if the lab ever opens again.

"The piecemeal process of civilianization that occurred, however slowly, was fraught with other problems. A sworn member and supervisor at the FEB testified that problems naturally arose when civilian scientists making approximately $60,000 a year were working next to sworn personnel doing exactly the same job at twice the pay. Records of salaries of FEB sworn members reveal the lowest base salary to be approximately $119,000, and a total salary of approximately at least $150,000 with overtime and other increases.".......

When that problem was eased, some of the sworn personnel felt that the civilian employees were detracting from their overtime pay potential. Civilian overtime pay is less costly to the Nassau County Police Department because the pay scale relates to base salary, which, as noted, is significantly less for civilians. While one detective drug chemistry analyst testified that he, and he believed other detectives, were not concerned with the impact of civilian overtime, Laura Hammond, a civilian hired in February 2008 as a questioned documents analyst, testified that she heard detectives saying to a civilian or civilians, "You’re taking my piece of pie," a criticism reflecting the sentiment that hiring civilians would reduce detective overtime."

That story proves my point: public sector unions should be outlawed.

The employees in the same job functions should have been paid the SAME for doing the same job. NOT union members get twice the money non-union members do!

And even more disgusting, note how greedy the union members were. Complaining if civilians got overtime. It's not enough they are getting paid twice the amount for the same work ... they want the overtime all for themselves too!

The absolutely most pathetic thing about this is how we were paying twice the salary for some of the workers and got the most unimaginably incompetent service from the crime lab -- so bad it had to be closed and the services outsourced to another state.

This will cost us an additional fortune what with all the criminals appealing their cases because of the crime lab's incompetence.

Tell me again how "paying top dollar" because someone is a member of a public sector union gets us top talent. Yeah, sure.

The only difference between these workers to merit the immense difference in the payscale?

Some were just private citizens.

Others were the beneficiaries of a politically powerful public sector union who helps to choose the person (politician) across the bargaining table from them with campaigning and big money.

Public sector unions have no place in this world.

If this fiasco doesn't prove it, I don't know what does.

[Goodnight]

Granelle worked in the lab since 1969 but had very little background or qualifications and lacked knowledge of the labtest procedures, how is it possible that you can work for over 40 years at anything and still not know what you are doing. He didn't understand the reports or test equipment but yet he signed off on the reports, the value of his signature escapes me.

There was a civilian drug chemist that came over from NYPD with 6 years experience and they wouldn't even work with her, all she did was answer phones and Fax reports. Addtionally, they couldn't even evaluate the NCPD techs due to the union contract, and they couldn't move to a new building because the union would not agree.

The end is that innocent people may have been placed in jail or guilty people may be released, either way this is a monumental screw up. I can't believe these people are still working for the county and no one was held responsible.

[I_Love_LI_but]

Originally Posted by Goodnight

Granelle worked in the lab since 1969 but had very little background or qualifications and lacked knowledge of the labtest procedures, how is it possible that you can work for over 40 years at anything and still not know what you are doing. He didn't understand the reports or test equipment but yet he signed off on the reports, the value of his signature escapes me.

There was a civilian drug chemist that came over from NYPD with 6 years experience and they wouldn't even work with her, all she did was answer phones and Fax reports. Addtionally, they couldn't even evaluate the NCPD techs due to the union contract, and they couldn't move to a new building because the union would not agree.

The end is that innocent people may have been placed in jail or guilty people may be released, either way this is a monumental screw up. I can't believe these people are still working for the county and no one was held responsible.

He was in the union, that's enough! What do you want, everything????