KC Buzz Blog

Kline's salary still under fire

    Before Thursday, Johnson County Commissioner John Segale was willing to support Phill Kline’s $143,000-a-year salary, saying the new district attorney was selected through an agreed upon process that he didn’t want to politicize by cutting the salary.

    But now that Kline’s office has indicated he may not follow the county’s hiring, firing and grievance policies for county employees, Segale said he may be willing to review the salary.

   If Kline doesn’t want to follow the traditional and informal rules by which the district attorney’s office and the county manager’s office have worked together for decades, then the board is not compelled to follow its past practice of paying elected officials what the previous officeholder received, Segale said.

   On Thursday, three county residents urged commissioners to lower Kline’s salary.

   Gussie Pincus of Mission told commissioners that she wanted Kline paid at the low end of the salary range.

   Kathy Berger joined her in addressing the board: “Can we really be telling the constituency of Johnson County that the man evicted from the attorney general’s job is now proudly being proffered a job at a higher salary than the job he was evicted from? Phill Kline might have the job for the next two years, but please do not reward him with an experienced D.A.’s salary. He’s a new hire without the necessary qualifications and he should only be given a salary commensurate with his experience. I ask you all, does anyone else see the outrageous irony here?”

   Sandy Geduldig of Leawood also addressed the board: “Where is the best practice hiring model that the Johnson County Commissioners use, which suggests new hires (beginners), be hired at a tenured employee’s salary rate?  Paul Morrison spent 25 years earning that salary.  Kline is a beginner and should rightly earn a beginner’s salary.”

Posted by Finn Bullers

For Kline, it's high noon in JoCo

   Johnson County commissioners came out of a closed session late this afternoon and gave Phill Kline, the county's newly minted district attorney, until noon Friday to say whether he plans to abide by their hiring and firing practices as others before him have done.

   If he does, then the seven assistant district attorneys and one investigator in the D.A.'s office fired by Kline on Monday have greater leverage in an appeal hearing to fight for their old jobs. County policies state employees can only be fired for cause.

   If Kline does not -- and misses the commission-imposed deadline -- "we will be unable to provide an appeal hearing and we will conclude that the district attorney is acting in his capacity as a state official independent of the policies of the county," commissioners said in a statement released Thursday.

  That's significant because under that scenario, Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison, the fired employees' old boss,  gets to call the shots on their fate.

Posted by Finn Bullers

Wanted: Folks to hold soccer signs

    When you have to pay people to hold up a banner supporting your cause, you know something has got to be wrong with your campaign.

   But that’s exactly what the “Yes on Soccer” campaign did last fall as it tried to get Johnson County voters to back a property tax for two dozen youths soccer fields in Overland Park.

   The campaign spent about $2,000 to hire nine people to hold up a banner at a Chief’s game, new campaign finance reports show. No word on why the soccer supporters and their “grass roots” campaign couldn’t round up enough volunteers to hold up the banner.

   Maybe that was a foreshadowing of things to come. The tax increase went down in flames, getting support from barely more than a third of the voters casting ballots.

   All didn’t come out bad for soccer supporters, though. Some walked away with gifts baskets, costing the campaign about $1,000.

Posted by Brad Cooper