There is no guarantee that retrenchment will solve the problems that are currently facing the Mayor and City Council of Georgetown (M&CC). This is the conviction of Public Relations Officer, Royston King, who said that it is very difficult to understand why some persons are convinced that retrenchment is the only option available to the City Council to reduce cost.According to King, a number of organisational studies have shown that retrenchment can increase rather than cut cost.“Even if the council were to retrench, then it would still need to carefully study the organisational,Wholesale Jerseys USA, social and other costs associated with it.”He added that there are several very serious disadvantages involved, including the fact that retrenchment could result in fiscal stress and human resource shrinkage that can cause many difficult problems for administration and the city alike. These problems, he said, can be caused by the methods used by the council to cope with the need to retrench, and decrementalism.However, King has surmised that the major problem is the decrease of human resources that result from cost cutting measures.“It brings loss of skills, energy, morale, commitment, physical and mental health degradation that results from employees withdrawing physically and emotionally. Decrementals also cause reduced co-operative attitudes, greater fear and distrust, poor communication, lowered performance goals, restriction of production and increased turnover.”As such, he noted that it is very possible that costs will increase as a result of retrenchment due to the package that must be paid out on retrenchment and catering for the needs of re-training those retained by the municipality.Although lay-offs are intended to reduce the costs, some costs like the severance package, pension and administrative processing costs will increase, King added.? For this reason, he related that the cost reduction as an advantage of retrenchment is not attainable in the short run.? He pointed out that even in the long run, its achievement may be doubtful.King asserted that it has always been the intent of the council to focus on improving its efficiency to deliver quality service to citizens rather than on retrenchment.“The thing is we do not need staff to provide service rather we provide service that is why we need staff. Therefore, to just retrench staff would be to undermine our ability to provide the services to citizens.”He highlighted that the council is short of staff in almost all of its departments as it has not been able to fill a number of vacancies created by people who have retired or resigned, and, in some cases it is difficult to recruit people with certain aptitude and skills to work in critical areas because of the lack of money. In essence, he noted that to cut staff would be to further reduce an already depleted workforce.Accordingly, he noted that council is continuing to explore restructuring as an appropriate option to make optimal use of its human and other resources. If this is achieved,Cheap Jerseys China, the PRO noted, the current range of municipal services could be effectively and efficiently managed. He said this development could lead to a fundamental concern about the need for money at the city council.Over the last two years,Cheap Jerseys, he recounted that the council and the Commission of Inquiry engaged in a process of examining, with great particularity, every aspect of the specific and general responsibilities of the municipal body.“Evolving out of that was a comprehensive report with very specific, measurable benchmarks and indicators and recommendations to improve efficiency in every section of the municipality. Also, an Implementation Committee, headed by Mr. Keith Burrowes, was appointed to assist the council to implement the recommendations of the report. We believe that if the recommendations are implemented then the council could do much better in many areas of its responsibility.”And the resulting report, King said, was very strong on the financial management of the council,Cheap Jerseys Free, particularly on securing the integrity of the municipality, the collection of rates and strengthening of the legal section. It is true, he added that, property-owners owe the council hundreds of millions of dollars, even as he outlined that “if we were to collect those outstanding amounts then we would be more than able to honour our obligations to our workers and garbage and other contractors. We have tried everything to persuade home-owners to pay their rates but many have not even paid attention to us.”The municipality’s lenient approach has given some the impression that “we must beg them to honour their civic obligation to the city. It has

– US correctional experts Most of the illegal articles found in the prison are taken in by staff members.This is the view of two retired correctional officers from the United States of America, who are winding down a training programme for prison officers on ethical dilemmas.Retired US correctional officers Carlyle Holder (left) and Robert Matthews are in Guyana to conduct training for prison officers on ethical dilemma.The programme comes at a time when local prison officials have been increasingly unearthingcontraband substances within the prison, including drugs and weapons.In some cases, these items are smuggled in by the prisoners themselves, while the authorities have caught staff members trying to take in drugs in some of the most ingenuous ways.Carlyle Holder, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Florida-based Correctional Management and Communications Group, has 27 years experience in the United States correctional system, including a top post at the country’s largest federal prison before his retirement in January this year.His colleague, Robert Matthews, who is also retired, spent 20 years in the US federal prison system, including stints at Leavenworth, and the US Penitentiary in Atlanta.In an exclusive interview with this newspaper yesterday, the two retired prison experts said that their visit to Guyana stems from discussions with Director of Prisons, Dale Erskine, during which their work in other Caribbean countries, such as St. Lucia, was highlighted.“They were having a lot of issues with staff bringing in stuff for the inmates and things like that. Mr. Erskine took it to his ministry, and it was decided that they wanted us to come and do the same here,” said Holder, who is Trinidadian by birth.Both experts have indicated that they are impressed with the staff of the local prison system, who they said were very interested in improving the system and transforming it to a more progressive operation.They both said that Guyana’s prison situation is not unique, and they will not be trying to impose anything from the system they are familiar with, but rather will craft programmes that are better? suited to Guyana’s criminal justice system.“We have the same problems like you have. We teach ethics in the United States and we have programmes like this for staff in the federal prison system on a regular basis. At least once a year they go through mandatory ethics training,” Holder explained.He said that, firstly, prison officers must be aware of the ethics problem,Cheap NFL Jerseys, so that they will be better able to deal with it.“What it really boils down to is doing the right thing,” he added.There are reports that a local prisoner could get almost anything illegal within the facility.These illegal items are either smuggled in through the gate, although the administration has installed an x-ray scanner, or it is thrown over the prison walls, such as with the case of a firearm recently.The latter has prompted the administration to mount guards around the main prison in Georgetown to deter this kind of activity.Recently, an officer was caught trying to smuggle marijuana into the prison.Holder pointed out that although some prison officers are guilty of facilitating the entry of contraband goods into the prison,Jerseys NFL Wholesale, this represents a small percentage of the staff.“What happens is the good people look the other way, and what we have to get them to do is not look the other way, but make reports. Let’s get rid of the few bad apples that make the agency appear to be corrupted with a lot of dirty staff. This training will probably remove some of that wall of silence, so that people will realize that if you look the other way, you are just as guilty as the person that’s doing it,” he said.He described contraband items as things that should not be in the prison, including drugs and cell phones.“Contraband can be anything that is unauthorized. In our business, if you give an inmate a stick of gum and it is not authorized, it’s the beginning of something. Although it’s small and may have no significance in what we do, once you give him that one illegal piece, it could move from there to a candy, then to drugs, and then a cell phone,NFL Jerseys Cheap,” the prison expert explained.Unlike in the United States of America, prisoners in Guyana get more opportunities to interact with the public whenever they are on outdoor duties.The prison experts agreed that this increases the opportunities for prohibited items to be smuggled into the facility.A section of the local prison officers listen to US prison expert Carlyle Holder during one of the training sessions.According to Robert Matthews, who was also a United States Marshal for the District of Columbia, most of the prisoners in the United States sometimes don’t even kn