Reform, We Don't Need No Stinking Reform (Ludington City Hall, 12-3-2012)

[XLFD]

At the 12-3-2012 meeting, I arose during the public comment section to comment on three things, basically.  The first was whether the City had followed the law the previous year in accord with public health care reform.  The second was about the water tower paint job.  The third was about the waste hauling contract the City was scheduled to enter into, but was postponed for two weeks.  I had a fourth, but this will be revisited the next meeting.   This discusses the first, which is a complex issue, but hopefully I can make some sense of it.

                          Rick Snyder Signs PA 152 of 2011 into law, saving the State up to a half a billion.

"Let me regress to the meeting a week ago to begin. After I had claimed the City had done so, City Manager Shay denied that the City had violated Act 152 of 2011, a reform to get public employee benefits more in line with the private sector. The fringe to wage ratio well over 50% for all salaried officials in Ludington had me presuming the health benefits were well above the hard caps, so I had figured they needed to raise the rate our public officials pay for their health premiums this year.

This week, I asked for specific evidence that the City had actually complied via a FOIA request. My assertion should be easy to refute if the City Manager's denial is accurate and he did his figuring back in 2011, but I have yet to see one iota of proof.   But I patiently await such evidence, and will verify it, if it does arrive. Even without our state laws, the councilors should debate whether our public officials deserve such unfair advantages over their private sector counterparts that pay the bills that the councilors ring up.   Insisting our City's officials pay 20% of their premiums is not unreasonable, and will not scare away potential employees."

My FOIA Request was replied to on the afternoon of the meeting it was worded thusly:

"On November 26, 2012, at the City Council meeting, after I had claimed the City had violated the above law for 2012 due to lack of any available evidence to the contrary and the high 53% plus of fringe/salary that City officials received, you (John Shay) made this comment at the City Council meeting: "In 2012, we [the City of Ludington] were below those hard cap limits so that we did not have to take a vote to opt out, we were below the hard caps, so for him [myself, Tom Rotta] to say we violated the law is factually incorrect."

I then asked for:  "Records from the 2011 budget committee or any other relevant committee/official in 2011 containing the data the City of Ludington used in 2011 to determine that they fell under the 'hard caps' limit, including any correspondence with any state agencies referencing the City's exemption due to falling under these hard caps."

Before revealing this FOIA reply, I recall the budget of 2012, released to the public in the December of 2011, did not ever refer to this reform, nor was it brought out specifically in any public meeting.  In John Shay's news releases on 12-2-2011 COLDNews: "...$1,200 a year for non-union salary workers.  Shay stated the increases will be offset, or more than offset, by employee contributions to health insurance costs."  Then in the aftermath in the 12-6-2011 COLDNews:  "

Also on Monday, the council approved raises that will pay most salaried workers $1,200 extra in 2012, but which requires them to pay toward their health insurance premiums.  Those employees will pay 10 percent of their health insurance benefits."

It sounds to me like replacing benefits with flat wages, which works out to be a negative revenue for those who carry a family health care plan, a positive for those with a single or double plan, from the following.

MCL 15.563 states that a local government has what Shay calls a "hard cap" of health plan spending by the City equal to ($5500 X # of single plans) + ($11,000 X double plans) + ($15,000 X family plans) affecting them on any such plans beginning 1-1-2012. 

One of the two documents I received was labelled the HSA Hard Cap, which said the hard cap for this time was different than that amount.  Ludington has 4, 11, and 32 employees receiving single, double, and family plans respectively.  This puts the 'Hard Cap' at $623,000, although this record says $655,957.44 was that cap at that point (in the rt. hand corner). 

This document does not have any time stamp on it, so this could have been even fabricated after the fact, but shows several things.  The costs to the City for these health plans were $5958, $13,106, and $15,248 for the three plans for the City's employees, all above the limits set.  Thus the City needed to either exempt itself from this back in 2011, raise the employee-paid rates to 20% as per MCL 15.564, or raise the premiums paid by the employee just enough to get within the limits stated above. 

Doing the latter, which they did, was probably the best way to handle it (this is one time I agree with John Shay).  The first would have been politically difficult to do in light of the law's passage, and city elections.  The second would have been a big hit on the employees with health insurance all at one time.  Offsetting it by giving $1200 raises last year, however,went against the cost-saving aspect of the reform law.

Was there a violation of this new law?  Probably not; the jump up to 10% was obviously a move to get them within the law with the minimum of damage to employee relations and political fallout.

But this was a temporary fix, as the health premiums jumped once again preciptously higher than the adjustment for 2013, and so instead of tacking on another 10% of the premiums, to move it closer to what your average private sector employees get to pay (if lucky enough to receive health care coverage from their employer), they decide to exempt themselves from this reform law this year.  So now they will pay only ten percent or less of their rather complete health care coverage, instead of the twenty percent they should be paying, if they didn't specifically exempt themselves from this law. 

Good for them, it's not like they work for us (their boss) anyway-- as any review of the last few years show unequivocally.  Higher taxes, higher fees, more restrictions on rights, lower amounts of services, less money towards infrastructure needs.   Consistently, without exemption.

[AQUAMAN]

The present administration of the City really seems to think it's above State and Federal laws most of the time nowadays, so this again, is not surprising to me. We have already discussed and debated the Medical Marijuana Law, and some state liquor laws in previous threads, in addition some traffic sign laws too. Just another example of the vanity and aloofness of Shay and Henderson at the helm of a small one horse town where locals are apathetic in their own politics.

[XLFD]

Attached is the FOIA Response to my FOIA Response

You will note that there was no deliberation at all in making the decision back in 2011 in any committee to raise the premium level from zero to 10%, just a decision made unilaterally by the City Manager without any need to justify it to anyone. 

If I was an employee of the City, I would be upset that this decision was put on them without any input from anyone except City Manager Shay.  The likely scenario was probably a lot like this:  one of the City Attorneys informed Shay that a new law would make their 2012 levels of health care be affected by the reform and that they had to make a change.  They, Shay, or someone else on the budget squad calculated a minimal amount to stay within the law, and put it in the budget without any need for explanation. 

But to make it palatable to city workers, they put in the flat $1200 raise, making the single and double planned people get an overall raise of real salary, and those with family plans would almost come out even.  Such deliberations and decisions are marginally within the law, but it speaks more of the general ethics of the people making these decisions that they decide to do so without calling attention to the high levels of coverage they and the rest of the City workers have in the first place.   

[Willy]

X.

I see that Mr. Shay did not charge you for this FOIA request. He must be getting soft because of the Christmas season. There may be hope for ol McScrooge Shay after all. Or it could be your charming personality is finally melting his stoney heart

[XLFD]

The judge in our FOIA case made a point for the City to honor affidavits of indigency, so with a request like this for records that are at least semi-exculpatory on his behalf, he will waive any unreasonable fee.  Besides, I think he reproduced these records just to show that the City was aware of the implications of the law in 2011. 

But when he tries to charge around $150 for 2012 communications between City officials and the one water tower painting company, you know that he still hasn't been visited by the three spirits of Christmas just yet.  And if he was visited, he would write it off as Scrooge seeing the ghost of Jacob Marley did:  "...You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are."

That reminds me, I have to read Dicken's classic to the kid before the big day.