ACHTUNG: This is not a “fair and balanced” article. It is an editorial by the editor.
If there is one thing the Dorr Township Board has done better than anyone else around here, it is micromanaging.
Though missing from the landscape in the last several years, it returned with a vengeance last month.
Trustee Chandler Stanton, with apparent support from Trustee John Tuinstra, shared his opinion about a shortfall of $8,250 in the township budget over the past year. And he was hell bent on casting suspicions on Treasurer Myrna Marr and her predecessor, Jim Martin.
Dictionaries have described, “A micromanager tends to require constant and detailed performance feedback and to focus excessively on procedural trivia (often in detail greater than they can actually process) rather than on overall performance, quality and results. This focus on ‘low-level’ trivia often delays decisions, clouds overall goals and objectives, restricts the flow of information between employees, and guides the various aspects of a project in different and often opposed directions. Many micromanagers accept such inefficiencies as less important than their retention of control or of the appearance of control.
“The micromanager takes essential management practices to extremes and interferes with employees’ ability to do their jobs properly, while creating undue stress for them.”
Mr. Stanton could have called attention to the financial problem by alerting the treasurer’s department and auditor and ask that it be corrected. Instead, he chose to make the issue very public, probably in an attempt to embarrass a public official, who has promised to work with the auditor to get the matter settled.
Stanton therefore insisted that the board packet for the next meeting include bank statements from July and August. He, Tuinstra, Clerk Debbie Sewers and Trustee Dan Weber voted in favor, Marr, Supervisor Jeff Miling and Trustee Pat Champion were opposed.
Perhaps Stanton is being tutored by Tuinstra, one of the best micro-managers I’ve ever seen. Tuinstra and former colleague Patty Senneker years ago insisted that they sit in on interviews for prospective firefighters, taking that responsibility away from the fire chief and other department officials. He later asked nicely for Chief Gary Fordham to send him the resume of a recent hire.
So much for trusting and respecting your hired personnel to do their jobs.
Now comes information that the township’s attorney has recommended the board rescind last month’s board action to include bank statements in board packets before meetings, only an attempt to better monitor and micro-manage activities within departments.
Miling already has indicated he will move to have last month’s action rescinded, on advice of legal counsel, perhaps thereby nipping in the bud a troubling old feature that has plagued this board for too long.
Editor,
You never seemed to have a problem with the liberal mob micro managing a fake dossier bought and paid for by the Clinton foundation……….What seems to be wrong with transparency? Hard to have it both ways, though the very apparent double standard is alive and well…..
Cheers!!
Seems my first comment disappeared so here goes again.
What happened in Dorr township was clearly not micromanagement. Rather it was lack of management. There was no performance, quality or results or the missing funds would have been discovered in a more timely manner. The fact that the bank accounts were not balanced for so many months is pure misconduct and/or laziness and incompetence. In the private sector this lack of performance, quality and results would have resulted in disciplinary action and perhaps even termination, but here you call out the township employees (Stanton, Tuinstra, and Sewers) who have the integrity to stand up and say show us a monthly bank statement as micromanagers as something bad. They are clearly representing the township residents to the best of their ability.
I think the township employees who voted against a monthly report that includes a bank statement (Miling, Marr and Champion) are in CYA mode and they are clearly not having the best interest of the township residents. What are they trying to hide? Balancing a bank statement is accounting 101. Every kid who graduates high school should know how to perform this task. Every employee who is entrusted with an organizations funds should know how to perform this task and it should be done monthly. Had it been performed in a timely manner perhaps more of the funds could have been recovered and/or we would not have lost as much as we did. The residents of Dorr deserve better representation. Elected officials should perform their duties in a timely manner and not be insulted when asked to provide documentation that tasks have been completed. Again, what are they hiding? Why aren’t they doing the job for which they were elected? As a resident I am very disappointed and very concerned that this could happen again.
Joycelin,
Very well wrote………..Additionally why is the editor trying to cover for this mismanagement? Why is Marr voting on this issue, it’s her [townships] checkbook?
Cheers!!
Thank you.
Exactly. She should not vote on this issue. Are those voting no looking out for the residents or for themselves?
Columnist,
A shortfall is a very unusual term you used for over $8,000 allegedly being stolen from Dorr Township’s bank account and used for online sports gambling. I have been told the State Police are still investigating the the alleged crime.
It seems to me that Trustee Chandler Stanton had the backbone and fortitude to bring the issue to the citizens’ attention and that no one else had for months.
Additionally, the funds allegedly being taken out month after month and were not discovered for months. So apparently someone had to “micromanage,” another interesting term used in the article.