California cried for their budget problem for years now. Yet its system and bureaucracy paid so much to this doc who hasn’t seen a patient for 5 years. Don’t you think he should be let go, or at least making something like $13/hr (as Mr. Javier Toro in another post) for the mail room type of work he does? Thoughts? ------------------- ABC News July 13, 2011 The highest-paid state employee in California last year, earning $777,423, is a prison doctor who isn’t allowed to see patients, state officials said. Dr. Jeffrey Rohlfing, 65, has successfully appealed attempts by the receiver who oversees California’s prison health-care system to dismiss him and is working in the medical records office at High Desert State Prison in Susanville, said Nancy Kincaid, a spokeswoman for the receiver, J. Clark Kelso. He hasn’t seen patients since 2005 and has a history of mental illness, she said. Rohlfing earned the standard salary for doctors in the prison health-care system last year, $235,740, Kincaid said. He also got two years’ back pay after a November 2009 ruling upholding an earlier decision that the state had to hire him back. “We had no choice. Clark Kelso did not want to have this doctor on staff, but was ordered to take him back,” she said. A lawyer for Rohlfing could not immediately be reached for comment. Jacob Roper, a spokesman for State Controller John Chiang, confirmed that Rohlfing was California’s highest-paid employee last year. Second on the list was another prison doctor, Dr. Fong Lai, who earned $736,000, he said. Rohlfing was placed on probation for five years in 1996, according to Medical Board of California records, because of “bizarre, irrational and delusional communications” with the staff of Valley Children’s Hospital in Fresno, where he then worked. In July that year, he appeared at the hospital “disheveled…agitated” and strongly smelling of alcohol and accosted a staff member, who called police, according to the board records. After a car chase with police, cops placed him in psychiatric hold. Two weeks later, he was again placed in psychiatric hold. Despite his history, Rohling was hired as a prison doctor in 2003, Kincaid said. Rohlfing had originally been put on paid leave in 2005 after failing to send two patients with chest pains to emergency rooms despite a history of heart trouble, she said. His supervisor found that in both cases the care had been “substandard,” according to a report in the Los Angeles Times. His clinical privileges were revoked and he was fired in 2007. But he won his appeal to the State Personnel Board in 2008 for being terminated, Kincaid said. The state appealed but the ruling was upheld. Health officials, who still didn’t have confidence in Rohlfing, voted to continue the revocation of Rohlfing’s clinical privileges, Kincaid said. He is one of six doctors at the prison, which has 4,275 inmates, she said, and has attended a skills evaluation program at the University of California at San Diego.
^ that is absolutely ridiculous!! it actually rivals the insanity of the Greek state!
A prison doc has no CFA - shocker
Won’t this case remind you what Reagen said? “…government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem…”
AlphaSeeker Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Won’t this case remind you what Reagen said? > > “…government is not the solution to our problem. > Government is the problem…” ^^^^ Uninformed people who believe simplistic, black/white, bumper sticker slogans like this are what got us into our current debt mess.
LBriscoe Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > AlphaSeeker Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Won’t this case remind you what Reagen said? > > > > “…government is not the solution to our > problem. > > Government is the problem…” > > > ^^^^ > > Uninformed people who believe simplistic, > black/white, bumper sticker slogans like this are > what got us into our current debt mess. +1
LBriscoe Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > AlphaSeeker Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Won’t this case remind you what Reagen said? > > > > “…government is not the solution to our > problem. > > Government is the problem…” > > > ^^^^ > > Uninformed people who believe simplistic, > black/white, bumper sticker slogans like this are > what got us into our current debt mess. Forget the slogans. Do you think this guy should be pocketing 770K per year for working the mail room ? It’s my money paying for this f**k !! Did you read how a majority of doctors hired by the State had a bad record PRIOR to being hired? off-course, where else can they find a job. It’s free money as far as they’re concerned.
^^ Ha! supposedly informed people’s best action so far is firing cheap shots… Banters aside, what do you you make of this situaiton? state government is forced to hire someone, had to find some job for him/her some mail room type of work to do at a base of $235k a year? If government is not the problem. What is?
770K seems fair to me…back to work you filthy unwashed peasants
AlphaSeeker Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > ^^ > > Ha! supposedly informed people’s best action so > far is firing cheap shots… > > Banters aside, what do you you make of this > situaiton? state government is forced to hire > someone, had to find some job for him/her some > mail room type of work to do at a base of $235k a > year? > > If government is not the problem. What is? I think he is grossly overpaid and, yes, government, in general, is inefficient as compared to the private sector (that’s not to say I couldn’t pull the same anecdotal evidence for any business/industry). I think gov’t needs to be reformed (constantly) not blamed for all of our problems. It doesn’t even make sense to blame gov’t for economic problems as without it the economy would collapse.
^ Now we are talking… Certainly government plays a role in providing public goods, you recall your earlier Macro Econ days. But as you stated government is in gernal inefficient… What do you do when you have a must have party of the society that’s in general ineffecient? You limit the size and function of it as much as possible… Agree, right? regardless if we are washed or unwashed; filthy or clean, peasants or customer service rep making $13/hr. BTW, you are a woman, right?
The problems with government stated above are problems for most large organizations. I used to work for a bank than employed over a quarter million people. There were certainly people making hundreds of thousands of dollars and doing practically nothing in that organization…should have known to short. If you want to get really fired up, look at what’s going on with the CA university system…administrative overhead is literally destroying a once great asset to the state.
the government should be lean, flexible and at the service of the society and the market, it should be forced to espouse the principles of efficiency and above all, social justice which it should serve. however as a concept it has a very important raison d etre as far as i’m concerned and that is democracy. so yeah, it definitely should be there, that it is plagued with errors is a call for reform and more responsible men/women imbued with the right principles to embody it and take it to to the next stage.
I really think a big problem is the deterioration of any sense of honor or duty in public service. It seems that most people on here believe that government should be run better, but everyone thinks of politicians as slimy yes-people. Even locally, there are few politicians who I hold in esteem. As a matter of fact, most of the local politicians I know are vastly underqualified for the post (IMO). No smart person wants to work their way up in politics making sh!t when they can get a private sector job and clean up (without a referendum on their position every 4 or 6 years).
brain_wash_your_face Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The problems with government stated above are > problems for most large organizations. I used to > work for a bank than employed over a quarter > million people. There were certainly people > making hundreds of thousands of dollars and doing > practically nothing in that organization…should > have known to short. > The big distinction btw the corporate world and governments is the source of revenue. Large organizations are able to pay bloated staffs b/c their customers use their services/products. Governments, on the other hand, don’t have consumers to rely on, they only have tax payers that have no choice but to cough it up.
I know about this one money manager who took in like 50B but it was all a ponzi scheme and everyone lost everything I guess we should shut down the money management industry because it’s completely corrupt and incapable of doing any good.
He earns $235k per year, not $770k. The $770 was just last year because it included back pay. Not that $235k per year is okay for an employee who is no longer qualified to perform his job, but let’s get the facts straight.
That’s par for the course for the tea partiers. I love how they complain about these huge bloated salaries of public union workers but when you look into it a little further it turns out they’re citing their last year’s salary which includes back pay for sick days or unused vacation time. Now guys like Chris Christie want to take that away, which is nice, especially for the guy who worked his entire career without taking a sick day.
Look at my 3rd post… The $235k/year reference is there. This doc is mentally challenged who hasn’t seen a patient for 5 yrs and who is actually doing mail room work. Mailrom employees are generally paid in the 5-digits. Or $13/hour. How informed or washed a peasant are you if you even consider $235k a year is fine here…?
LBriscoe Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > That’s par for the course for the tea partiers. I > love how they complain about these huge bloated > salaries of public union workers but when you look > into it a little further it turns out they’re > citing their last year’s salary which includes > back pay for sick days or unused vacation time. > Now guys like Chris Christie want to take that > away, which is nice, especially for the guy who > worked his entire career without taking a sick > day. Regarding the sick days issue, in the private sector there is a limit on how much vacation days you can roll-over from year to year, why don’t they apply a similar rule in the public sector ? I’ve heard of people retiring with an extra 500K in vacation time here in CA. ( Prison psychiatric - now why would a guy like this be allowed to keep rolling over his vacation days year after year ?)