Thank you for bringing attention to Lucas County Children Services Executive Director Dean Sparks’ double-dipping compensation (“Double-dipping may be an issue in levy campaign,” Aug. 10).
Mr. Sparks should serve as the poster child for greed and self-enrichment at the expense of Toledo taxpayers. He has made a career of feeding at the public trough, and he makes no apologies for it.
If Mr. Sparks really cared about serving our community, he would offer to cut his salary or donate a portion of his wages to provide services to our region’s vulnerable children. Instead, he says: I got mine, and I’m keeping it.
Until these overpaid public servants get a grip on Toledo’s economic realities, I plan to vote no on all of their money-grab levies.
MIKE McMAHON
Robinwood Avenue
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Sparks like few public employees
Mr. Sparks is wrong when he says he is doing nothing different from other public employees who are in Ohio’s public retirement system. Few public employees are allowed to collect their pensions and severance packages and then return to the same job. As a retired 34-year employee of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, I can attest that the DNR prohibited the practice. It is usually the six-figure-salary administrators who manage to pull off such double-dipping.
JIM BROWER
Oregon
County must stop double-dipping
How did county government ever get to this point? How were these payout policies allowed to be established, given the fiscal issues they would create in the long run?
Do the Children Services board and Mr. Sparks, who is a supposedly valued and experienced manager, think this double-dipping controversy will not have an impact on the levy passing?
As a Lucas County taxpayer and former public employee, I will vote for this levy only if I know that my money is being used to care for children and not to pad the pockets of an employee.
GLEN A. LAMMON
Maumee
Vote ‘no’ until pay reformed
Not one levy should be approved until Lucas County stops paying people for unused sick or vacation time.
Seniors and low-income people are tired of greedy people picking their pockets. My property tax is high enough. I will not vote yes on any levy until people such as Mr. Sparks are replaced.
MARTHA VAUGHT
Leybourn Avenue