I have finally managed to do it! Work all day, attended two events, home to get the kids to bed, and this blog done before Thursday. I am getting better at this!
This week, we had our final Board of Commissioners meeting of the year. I guess it is fitting that we spent so much time on the Road Commission, and that was the central issue of our last meeting.
The resolution of intent to disband the Ingham County Road Commission and instead create a Department of Transportation and Roads was taken up on the Board floor. I have gone through the arguments several times, so I will just go through the debate. Several Commissioners weighed in with important debate. Commissioner Todd Tennis led off, and said that he believes there are many questions still to answer. He also said he has concerns that the county will be pressured to use general fund dollars on roads if we deal absorb the road commission. He said that he is not necessarily against merging the operation, but that he has unanswered questions and is not ready to support the resolution at this time. I respect that, and appreciate his thoughts on the issue.
Commissioner Dianne Holman said that while she didn't think the language was perfect, she supports the concept and said that we are ready and willing to take action. Commissioner Celentino said basically everything I wanted to say. He said that we have a lot more to do in terms of details, and that we support the employees and will not let them be negatively effective in this whole process. Commissioners Dougan and Schafer and Vickers said that they support the resolution. Schafer said there have been problems with the road commission for years, and Vickers said that the Board doesn't work. Commissioner Rebecca Bahar Cook agreed that this is not targeted at employees, and is is targeted at a broken system. I then weighed in and said that this will be a long implementation process, but that we have done it before with the zoo which was more complex. I also pointed out that we can supplement road funding with county dollars now, so it makes no difference whether or not we have a Road Commission or internal department. Commissioner Vince Dragonetti said that this is a resolution of intent and an option, and said that we can re-establish the Board if needed. Board Chair Grebner said that this communicates to the Road Commission and their upper staff our intentions, and that they should take short term actions and avoid commitments that we will have to deal with later. After this debate, the resolution passed on a roll-call vote 15-1 with Commissioner Tennis voting no. I am sure their will be more on this early next year!
Last week, I wrote about the Fair Director position. That came up tonight. A substitute was introduced that re-inserted performance incentives for the position (reminder - the position will be staffed by a person as part of a company) in addition to the $80,000 salary. It was once again mentioned that there will be no benefits and this will be cheaper than a full time employee. Several people raised the point that we need to have an official policy on incentives. Commissioners Deb Nolan and Rebecca Bahar Cook specifically requested that the County Services committee discuss this at the first meeting next year. That being said, commissioner agreed to allow for it for this one position which is unique. The incentives were listed in the resolution, which said that the factors would be based on fair gate admissions, off-season revenues, and total revenues, benchmarked against a rolling average of the three previous fiscal years' data. I raised my concern that I had in County Services that this really didn't clarify the factors enough. Commissioner Carol Koenig, our Fair Board representative, said that they still needed to work out the details and that it would all be in the contract. I offered an amendment adding language ensuring that these three factors are not the only ones, and that there must be improvement in each of these factors. That way we are ensured that the incentives are significant and are met before incentives are granted. The amendment passed unanimously, then the resolution passed unanimously.
We also considered a resolution that will create a season rate for usage of the tubing hill and snow board hill. We already had daily pass rates, but this created season rates. We amended the resolution to reduce the seasonal rate from $150 to $99 for adults and from $75 to $59 for children. This passed unanimously.
I also sponsored a late resolution opposing the closure of the Collins Road Post Office. The postal service is consolidating nationwide and closing branch office. On their list of potential closures is the Collins Road post office, which is the processing facility for the mid-Michigan area. If this closes, the mail for our area will go through Grand Rapids. It is crazy to me that the Capitol area not have a postal facility for mail processing. The resolution passed unanimously, and we are now on record against this. We will be joining LEAP and others who will be actively fighting this closure and pushing Congressman Mike Rogers to get involved against this closure.
Finally, Ingham County was approved as a “Storm Ready County” by the National Weather Service and received a seal and commendation for this. The Local
Planning Team (LPT) has expanded outdoor warning sirens in the County using grant funds, distributed weather alert radios to residents and businesses, hosted weather spotter seminars, and expanded warning notification using the CodeRED system.
As this was the last meeting, congratulations are in order for several commissioners. Congratulations and thanks to the committee chairs - Commissioner Todd Tennis (Human Services), Rebecca Bahar Cook (Judiciary), Debbie DeLeon (County Services), and Celentino (Law Enforcement). Finally, a special congratulations to Commissioner Mark Grebner, who was Chair of the Board of Commissioners for the last time. He has served as a Commissioner for over 35 years, and this was the last time he will serve as Chair of our Board. Thanks for everything, Mark!
Happy holidays and a happy new year to all!
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Friday, December 9, 2011
Beer Tent at Fair, Incentive Clause for Fair Manager, Honoring MLK and Dot Wilson and Cristo Rey
Sorry to be late with this blog. As my campaign for State Representative heats up, I will be going to more and more events and have less time. But I will not neglect my county duties and will try to get this blog out as quickly as possible.
In County Services this week, we took up a resolution to permanently authorize the Fair Board to allow for an adult refreshment tent at the Ingham County Fairgrounds. A few years ago, we debated this and voted to authorize the Fair Board to allow the fair to offer alcohol in a segregated and controlled environment, but only for a two year pilot. That vote was controversial because several people gave public comment that having a beer/alcohol tent would result in all kinds of problems - drunk people letting animals out of the pens, fights, drunk driving, etc. Now that we have two years experience and have had absolutely zero problems at the fair dealing with the beer/alcohol tents, we were considering a resolution to make this permanently allowed (but still up to the discretion of the Fair Board). Commissioner Grebner commented that he wanted to be sure to alert the people who opposed this that we would be taking up this resolution before we actually vote on it. He reiterated that there have been no problems and that the concerns were unfounded, but thought we should proactively notify these residents. It was also pointed out that the fair made money on the beer/alcohol tent which kept the fair in the black. Commissioner Vickers agreed that there were no problems, but requested the financials for the last two years for the fair. Both he and Commissioner Dragonetti questioned whether the financial numbers included set-up and staffing costs for the beer tent. The resolution was tabled for a meeting in order to invite the members of the public that testified previously, and to have the financial information presented to the committee.
The second controversial resolution at County Services was the resolution to hire a new Fair Manager. The resolution was much more controversial. Instead of hiring a county employee, this would hire a gentleman who was highly qualified through a company he had formed. He wanted to forego benefits and just get paid a salary. The catch is that he also wanted incentive dollars. The resolution would have authorized a salary at $80,000, plus an additional $7,500 at the end of first year and up to $15,000 at the end of the 2nd year. It was pointed out that this is cheaper than what the county pays for a full time employee at the lowest step (because benefits are not being paid, and they could be up t0 $40,000). Incentives could include making money, increased customers at the fair, effective marketing techniques, filling the commercial sponsors by some %, filling the spaces, etc...and would be created by the Fair Board with approval from the Controller.
I had serious concerns about voting for a contract with incentive money. I was especially concerned about the idea of approving this when we don't even know what the incentives will be. Because the resolution already required the controller to approve the incentives used before incentive money is disbursed, I proposed an amendment that was passed that requires the Controller to report the conditions to the County Services Committee. This will ensure that we know what those incentives are, and that we approve. I agreed to support this resolution because Controller Lannoye and Committee Chair DeLeon said that this candidate was the best that we had and that they want to finalize this contract over the next week or two.
In Finance Committee, this resolution saw even further scrutiny. Commissioner Nolan argued that Ingham County doesn't need a full time fair director for a fair that is one week in the summer, and for other random bookings of the fair grounds. She asked about comparable fairs, and said that $80,000 is a lot of money. Honestly, she made a lot of sense. Then, Commissioner Bahar-Cook also made some great points. She asked if this is the only contract he will have. Will he be available as we need him? Is he doing other fairs? If we are contracting with him through a company, how do we know that he will be doing our work first and foremost? Other questions arose from committee members about whether he will be principally based here, and if he would be doing the day to day supervision of our county staff. It was expressed that there should be a statement of hours provided to controller, and expectation of day-to-day supervision of county staff and hours, and requirements of working on site - as would be expected of a full time county employee. Commissioner Grebner and Bahar-Cook proposed an amendment which passed requiring a statement of hours worked on a regular basis to assure that services provided are comparable to a full time employee. Additionally, an amendment was passed to eliminate the incentives. Again, several committee members mentioned that an incentive bonus is not something we do with any other employee. The parks director doesn't get this for the number of users of the parks; the health department doesn't get this for assisting clients; etc. Commissioner McGrain along with Commissioners Bahar-Cook and Nolan said that even if this way is cheaper, it is still something we don't do with our county directors. Also, it was pointed out that other employees could decide not to take benefits, and we don't offer them incentives. It was a very convincing argument and I decided to support the amendment. Commissioner McGrain pointed out that we could review the county policy and implement these countywide, but not just for the Fair Director. After these amendments were passed, the resolution was passed and will now go to the Board floor.
We also approved several resolutions, including a resolution honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a resolution honoring Dorothy (Dot) Wilson who recently passed away, and a resolution honoring Cristo Rey Church on the event of its 50th Anniversary.
I will note that these were the last committee meetings of the year. Next year I will be on the Human Services and County Services committees, so you will hear about the issues that those two committees discuss. We have one more Board meeting, on Tuesday, where we will deal with the Intent to Dissolve the Road Commission resolution in addition to the resolutions mentioned in this blog.
In County Services this week, we took up a resolution to permanently authorize the Fair Board to allow for an adult refreshment tent at the Ingham County Fairgrounds. A few years ago, we debated this and voted to authorize the Fair Board to allow the fair to offer alcohol in a segregated and controlled environment, but only for a two year pilot. That vote was controversial because several people gave public comment that having a beer/alcohol tent would result in all kinds of problems - drunk people letting animals out of the pens, fights, drunk driving, etc. Now that we have two years experience and have had absolutely zero problems at the fair dealing with the beer/alcohol tents, we were considering a resolution to make this permanently allowed (but still up to the discretion of the Fair Board). Commissioner Grebner commented that he wanted to be sure to alert the people who opposed this that we would be taking up this resolution before we actually vote on it. He reiterated that there have been no problems and that the concerns were unfounded, but thought we should proactively notify these residents. It was also pointed out that the fair made money on the beer/alcohol tent which kept the fair in the black. Commissioner Vickers agreed that there were no problems, but requested the financials for the last two years for the fair. Both he and Commissioner Dragonetti questioned whether the financial numbers included set-up and staffing costs for the beer tent. The resolution was tabled for a meeting in order to invite the members of the public that testified previously, and to have the financial information presented to the committee.
The second controversial resolution at County Services was the resolution to hire a new Fair Manager. The resolution was much more controversial. Instead of hiring a county employee, this would hire a gentleman who was highly qualified through a company he had formed. He wanted to forego benefits and just get paid a salary. The catch is that he also wanted incentive dollars. The resolution would have authorized a salary at $80,000, plus an additional $7,500 at the end of first year and up to $15,000 at the end of the 2nd year. It was pointed out that this is cheaper than what the county pays for a full time employee at the lowest step (because benefits are not being paid, and they could be up t0 $40,000). Incentives could include making money, increased customers at the fair, effective marketing techniques, filling the commercial sponsors by some %, filling the spaces, etc...and would be created by the Fair Board with approval from the Controller.
I had serious concerns about voting for a contract with incentive money. I was especially concerned about the idea of approving this when we don't even know what the incentives will be. Because the resolution already required the controller to approve the incentives used before incentive money is disbursed, I proposed an amendment that was passed that requires the Controller to report the conditions to the County Services Committee. This will ensure that we know what those incentives are, and that we approve. I agreed to support this resolution because Controller Lannoye and Committee Chair DeLeon said that this candidate was the best that we had and that they want to finalize this contract over the next week or two.
In Finance Committee, this resolution saw even further scrutiny. Commissioner Nolan argued that Ingham County doesn't need a full time fair director for a fair that is one week in the summer, and for other random bookings of the fair grounds. She asked about comparable fairs, and said that $80,000 is a lot of money. Honestly, she made a lot of sense. Then, Commissioner Bahar-Cook also made some great points. She asked if this is the only contract he will have. Will he be available as we need him? Is he doing other fairs? If we are contracting with him through a company, how do we know that he will be doing our work first and foremost? Other questions arose from committee members about whether he will be principally based here, and if he would be doing the day to day supervision of our county staff. It was expressed that there should be a statement of hours provided to controller, and expectation of day-to-day supervision of county staff and hours, and requirements of working on site - as would be expected of a full time county employee. Commissioner Grebner and Bahar-Cook proposed an amendment which passed requiring a statement of hours worked on a regular basis to assure that services provided are comparable to a full time employee. Additionally, an amendment was passed to eliminate the incentives. Again, several committee members mentioned that an incentive bonus is not something we do with any other employee. The parks director doesn't get this for the number of users of the parks; the health department doesn't get this for assisting clients; etc. Commissioner McGrain along with Commissioners Bahar-Cook and Nolan said that even if this way is cheaper, it is still something we don't do with our county directors. Also, it was pointed out that other employees could decide not to take benefits, and we don't offer them incentives. It was a very convincing argument and I decided to support the amendment. Commissioner McGrain pointed out that we could review the county policy and implement these countywide, but not just for the Fair Director. After these amendments were passed, the resolution was passed and will now go to the Board floor.
We also approved several resolutions, including a resolution honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a resolution honoring Dorothy (Dot) Wilson who recently passed away, and a resolution honoring Cristo Rey Church on the event of its 50th Anniversary.
I will note that these were the last committee meetings of the year. Next year I will be on the Human Services and County Services committees, so you will hear about the issues that those two committees discuss. We have one more Board meeting, on Tuesday, where we will deal with the Intent to Dissolve the Road Commission resolution in addition to the resolutions mentioned in this blog.
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