{"id":10338,"date":"2011-07-07T00:26:22","date_gmt":"2011-07-07T05:26:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/?p=10338"},"modified":"2011-07-08T04:09:49","modified_gmt":"2011-07-08T09:09:49","slug":"county-job-and-family-services-director-retiring-for-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2011\/07\/07\/county-job-and-family-services-director-retiring-for-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Beard retiring earlier than planned"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Van Wert County Job and Family Services Director Jim Beard (left) and Commissioner Clair Dudgeon talk after a public hearing on Beard's retire-rehire proposal back in March. (VW independent file photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Just three months into a controversial retire-rehire agreement, Van Wert County Job and Family Services Director Jim Beard has announced he is retiring for good.<\/p>\n

Beard cited health reasons in his letter of resignation, and will be leaving his job effective July 28. Beard has a prior history of health concerns.<\/p>\n

Commissioners Clerk Larry Clouse said the commissioners are now accepting letters of interest in the position from current employees of the Job and Family Services Department until July 12, and plan to begin the interview process by July 14 in order to get someone in place by the time Beard leaves at the end of the month.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re planning to fill the position from within the department, if possible,\u201d Clouse said, noting that it was felt seeking a new director internally would work best with the short timeframe available.<\/p>\n

Commissioners Gary Adams and Clair Dudgeon had voted to approve Beard\u2019s retire-rehire agreement back in March, claiming the move would save the county nearly $60,000 over the 21 months of the agreement, which was to run from April 1 of this year until December 2012.<\/p>\n

Several people, including a number of Job and Family Services employees, had questioned the propriety of the retire-rehire agreement — especially whether the move would generate the amount of savings claimed by Beard and the commissioners.<\/p>\n

Controversy was also generated by the speed of the decision to approve the retire-rehire agreement. Although the commissioners had first said no decision would likely be made for 30 days after the hearing — because Commissioner Thad Lichtensteiger was leaving on a trip to the Czech Republic the next week — a vote on the agreement came a week later, just prior to Lichtensteiger\u2019s leaving on his trip.<\/p>\n

Lichtensteiger voted against the retire-rehire proposal, stating that he was opposed to the concept of retire-rehire in general.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was running for commissioner, I heard in very clear and unambiguous terms that people were tired of the whole concept of retire-rehire,\u201d Lichtensteiger said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to work and continue to work, do that,\u201d Lichtensteiger added. \u201cIf you want to retire, retire and go play golf \u2026 whatever it is that you want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the agreement, Beard, who made $74,311.38 prior to his original retirement on April 1, was to work 32 hours a week, which the commissioners estimated would save the county approximately $28,000 in payroll costs over the 21-month agreement, as well as a 14-percent savings on contributions to the Public Employees Retirement System (PERS). An insurance savings of approximately $26,000 was also estimated over the length of the agreement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor Just three months into a controversial retire-rehire agreement, Van Wert County Job and Family Services Director Jim Beard has announced he is retiring for good. Beard cited health reasons in his letter of resignation, and will be leaving his job effective July 28. Beard has a prior history of health concerns. Commissioners […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-03 00:28:09","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10338\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}