The Jacobsen Money Pit
Fresh from the uptown paper of record’s Department of Laughable Headlines: “Results unclear for Jacobsen’s UNCC work.”
The results are positively clear and thoroughly damning: former Department of Social Services Director Jake Jacobsen lingered on the county’s payroll for three years, pocketing upwards of $168,000 annually, coasting until retirement while creating nothing of substantive value as a figurehead for a UNCC think tank. As a nice perk, when other county employees were being pink-slipped by the hundreds, Jacobsen continued to receive a county car, computer and cell phone as part of his cushy deal.
Amazingly, nobody seems to have a clue about what Jacobsen produced, other than a “positive impact,” during his stint with UNCC’s Institute of Social Capital. Here’s a clue: anytime you read the words “think tank,” “positive impact,” “executive-in-residence” and “social capital” to describe a government job, reach for your wallet.
The money graph from The Observer article:
Commissioner Bill James, also on the board at the time, said he never viewed the Jacobsen deal as a “work product situation,” but as a deal to get him to retirement.
That “deal” likely cost taxpayers closed to a half-million dollars over three years. How’s that for a “positive impact”?
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