DC/DB Hybrid Tabled, Move to Amend, CATA

This week we had our Board Meeting. It was much quicker than I expected. The employee resolutions creating a hybrid defined benefit (pension)/defined contribution (401(k)) for commissioners and non-represented employees, which were controversial in committee, were tabled for one meeting on the Board floor. We had testimony from union leaders on these asking us to hold them because negotiations on the union employee contracts are still ongoing and are making progress. I expected this to take a lot of time and discussion, but it didn't.

Also, I may have mentioned that we would be doing the budget at this meeting. I apologize for any inconvenience that this created. We will be having a final vote on our 2013 budget in late October (the second Board meeting of that month).

We considered the resolution by Move to Amend. As I mentioned last week, this organization believes that campaign contributions are not speech and should be treated as property that can be regulated. They also believe that corporations are not people, and that they should not be able to contribute to campaigns in the same way that people are. Our resolution expressed support for Move to Amend's efforts to pass an amendment to the U.S. Constitution expressing these ideas. This passed 12-2 with 11 Democrats and one Republican supporting, and two Republicans (Dragonetti and Dougan) opposing it. They did not indicate in debate why they were voting against this resolution.

Finally, we considered amendments to the contract that we have with the Capital Area Transportation Authority (CATA). Commissioner Grebner once again (and for the final time) reminded us that the voters overwhelmingly passed additional taxes for CATA (roughly 73% in favor) and that the public supports CATA. He also reminded us that sometimes Commissioners don't like the things that CATA does, or want CATA to do something particular. This resolution is the place to attempt to rectify any concerns, as CATA has to do what we tell them in order to get the millage money. Commissioner Dragonetti asked if he could triple the service that CATA provides to to Delhi. Grebner said that Dragonetti could make a specific motion to this effect. He then reminded Dragonetti that Delhi Ready-Ride is a delhi-only service that CATA provides, and that Delhi is the only place in the service area that has such a service. This is done because CATA underserves Delhi and wants more people to ride the bus there. Dragonetti did not offer any amendment, and the resolution with the amendments to the contract passed unanimously.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Corporation Political Giving, Potter Park Zoo Director, DB/DC Hybrid, PLA for Family Center

Sorry for being late with the Blog this week. We had committee Thursday night, so I wasn't able to write this at that time. Luckily, I have a rainy morning to do it this morning!

This week, we had the County Services committee which was fairly busy. We first took up a resolution expressing the county's support for the group Move to Amend. This group is a national organization that wants to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Citizen's United case. This case said that corporations are people and contribute to political campaigns. Move to Amend wants to amend the U.S. Constitution to say (1) money is property and not speech, so it can be regulated and (2) corporations are not people. The Lansing Coordinator of Move to Amend testified in support of the resolution. He said that there is a resolution before the Lansing City Council as well. He also said that in addition to the Lansing group, there are groups in Traverse City, Glen Arbor, and Grand Rapids in Michigan. The resolution passed unanimously.

We then discussed the Potter Park Zoo. In good news, the Zoo was accredited by the AZA (which few zoo's are) when the accreditation folks were here last month. That is great news for Ingham County and the Potter Park Zoo. One criticism in the report, though, was that the executive director has too many levels of people to report to. There were about several levels of decision making after the executive director. The resolution that we had before us addressed that situation. It would make the executive director an employee of the county and directly supervise employees (which is necessary for the accreditation). The resolution gives the executive director $48,000 as a salary with no benefits in addition to compensation from Friends of the Zoo. This passed unanimously. We also considered a resolution that would move the executive director to be an employee of the Controller. She currently reports to the zoo board which reports to the parks board which reports to the parks director which reports to the County Services Committee which reports to the Board of Commissioners. This has too many advisory committees and is too much time in order to make decisions. There were also questions about if there is too much direct reporting to the controller. She currently has about 13 departments reporting to her now. Several member of the committee were hesitant to add another one. There were also questions about creating a new zoo department. I had suggested that we should have the zoo board report to the county services like the fair board does. We will continue the discussion at the next meeting and make a decision then.

We again considered a resolution authorizing the establishment of a MERS Defined Benefit/Defined Contribution Hybrid plan for the Board of Commissioners and Elected Officials. This was referred to committee from the Board, a resolution approving modifications to the 2012 managerial and confidential personnel manual, and a resolution the Establishment of MERS a Hybrid Plans for managerial and confidential employees. We rehashed the same conversations regarding the fairness of each plan, the problems with defined benefit, the risks involved, the potential rate of return percentages, and other factors. The big hang-up on these resolutions is whether or not we should do these before we deal with the union employees in collective bargaining. Some (Grebner and Holman) argued that we should deal with the employees that we can control now and pass these resolutions. Others (DeLeon, Celentino, Schor) argued that we should wait until employee negotiations settle the DB versus DC issue before moving on to our non-represented employees. These resolutions were table in County Services, but passed Finance and will be considered on the Board floor on Tuesday. One issue that came up that was new was how to prevent people from getting a higher rate if they go to another county position? Currently, if a county commissioner receives a 1.5 DB multiplier for 15 years then takes a job somewhere else in the county and receives a 2.25 for a few months, the entire service become a 2.25 multiplier. We all agreed that is wrong. We were told that we could go to an alternative rate instead of standard rate with MERS, but were not sure if this can only be done for transfers or not. Staff is checking on this, and we will make that change if we can.

Finally, we considered a recommendation from our staff to not use a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) when the bid specs go out for the Ingham County Family Center. Our staff recommended against having a PLA because of a recent;y-passed law. Last year, the Legislature passed a law prohibiting PLA's. That law was struck down by the courts. The Legislature then came back this year and passed a law saying that PLA's cannot be used in bid specs. This law has not yet been challenged but many think that it illegal to craft a law that would re-create something already struck down by the courts (according to previous legal cases). Our staff recommended against a PLA in bid specs due to the passage of that law. They said that they would be able to encourage the winner of the project to use a PLA according to the law, but were not comfortable going against the law. Commissioners Grebner and Holman and Celentino agreed with this. They said that we should follow the law and push for a PLA after the bid packets go out. They said to continue to push for a PLA could delay the Ingham County Fammily Center project because of time delays and the need to re-write the bid documents. I made a motion to reject the staff recommendation. I believe that the move by the Legisalture would be struck down by the courts just like the previous law was. If we continue with the PLA and we are sued, I believe the judge would rule the new law unenforceable. Commissioner DeLeon agreed with me and voted with me to reject the staff recommendation and continue on with a PLA. Commissioners Holman, Grebner, and Celentino voted against my motion (again, bevause they were concerned about the delays for the project and they think that a PLA can still be done after the bid packets go out). The motion was rejected and we went along with the staff recommendation to not use a PLA in the bid packets for this project.

The other committee that I had was the Human Services committee. All of the action items were on the consent agenda (many of the changes were already made in Finance, which met the day before and was out of order because of the Jewish holiday). We did hear an excellent presentation on the county dental program. Really eye-opening regarding the need for dental services and the many needs. They are truly doing a great job!

Next week is the Board of Commissioners meeting. We are meeting on Monday night instead of Tuesday because Tuesday night is the beginning of Yom Kippur. Have a great weekend!

Ingham County 2013 Budget Hearings

Last week started the budget hearings for our annual budget. Last week, I provided the budget summary letter from the Controller. We have now had all of our budget committees meet and significant changes have been made to the controller-recommended budget.

The County Services committee had most of its departments indicate satisfaction with their budget recommendations. This includes our Advisory Boards, Board of Commissioners office, Controller, County Attorney, County Clerk, Drain Commissioner, Economic Development, Equalization, Facilities, Fair, Farmland and Open Space Preservation Millage, Financial Services, Hotel/Motel, Housing Commission, Human Resources, Information Services, Purchasing, Transportation and Roads, Treasurer, Tri-County Regional Planning, and the Zoo. Register of Deeds Curtis Hertel agreed with the budget request, but let us know that money was being moved from the Register's Automation Fund. This fund was created by the Legislature a few years ago to ensure that technology is updated in the Register of Deeds offices. It comes from the recording fees charged. Three years ago, Hertel indicated that there was a surplus in the Automation Fund and agreed to have some of the money go towards helping the county budget for two years. That agreement expired last year, but the Register of Deeds indicated he would agree to it for one more year. But there was a warning that the Attorney General is reviewing the legislation creating the Automation Fund and may rule that it cannot be used for staff and to help general funds. If that happens, the County will need to backfill that money. Additionally, the Automation Fund is running out of money and likely will not be able to be used next year to backfill the general fund. We appreciate his comments.

The only Department in the County Services budget to ask to discuss their budget recommendation was the Parks Department. The Controller recommended eliminating two unidentified positions for $115,000 in budget savings. One of the positions was placed on the so-called Z-list to be reinstated. The budget always includes $300,000 in strategic planning funds which we use to reinstate cuts that are particularly troublesome. We call this the Z-list (I don't know why...it is before my time!). So we agreed to place this position on the z-list.

In Human Services, all departments accepted the controller recommendations except the Health Department. As mentioned last week, there were over 40 positions targeted to be eliminated. Many of these were in the Health Department. Our Health Director, Renee Canady, made a good presentation about why many of these positions are needed. She said they are looking at current needs versus operating budget, and the need to maintain current needs. She said that can't be done with this budget. They made significant changes to their operations to meet the needs. Some changes are seen as budget enhancements, but they can’t maintain the current level of service without these requests. They were forced to consider personnel eliminations versus program eliminations. While they understand the desire to eliminate vacant positions, many of those are still vital. Ill-timed retirements in important positions have resulted in elimination of needed vacant positions. She requested reinstatement of the Health Communications Specialist, two food bank specialists, an Office of Young Children Training Coordinator, and two environmental health positions. She provided a series of ways to fund this, including the use of z-list dollars and the use of unrestricted reserves (which are the reserves that we use for bonding, cash payments before receiving taxes, etc.). Additionally, several members of the public and the Community Health Center Board and the Health Department staff asked for the reinstatement of the dental electronic health record position, the patient portal position, and the patient centered medical home funding. All told, these requests (with a few additional positions being deleted) came to $285,000. We had a long discussion of priorities and needs. Also, there was discussion about grants and other dollars that would come to Ingham as a result of these positions. We voted 4-1 (Vickers opposed) to include all positions on the z-list so we could send them to Finance and have them compared against all other needs of the county. The Health Department was also asked to rank these in terms of importance in the eventuality that we can't fund all of them.

I don't serve on the Law Enforcement and Judiciary Committees. Luckily, the chairs of each of those committees sent me updates from their budget action. Commissioner Penelope Tsernoglou, Chair of the Law Enforcement Committee, reported:

"The Animal Control, Community Corrections, 911 Dispatch Center, Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, Prosecuting Attorney, and Tri-County Metro Squad Representatives indicated their satisfaction with their budgets early on so the committee promptly approved their budgets and sent them on their way. While there were noticeable cuts made to many of these departments, the directors were able to work with our controller to reach a budget we could all live with.

However, the Sheriff’s Office was unable to come to an agreement regarding their budget. The controller’s recommended budget included the closing of Post 7 (57 beds) and the elimination of six correctional officers, adding up to a savings of $583,424 in addition to eliminating a deputy and a detective position. The two positions, a deputy and a detective position, were placed on the z-list. Sheriff Wriggelsworth indicated that both positions were very much needed, but the deputy position would come first if he was forced to choose between them. An additional Pre-Trial Services Investigator position was included within the budget for Circuit Court to help manage the jail population in light of the reduced capacity. However, Sheriff Wriggelsworth and Undersheriff Alan Spyke presented a strong case for keeping the post open. Commissioner Celentino moved to take money out of the undesignated fund balance to pay for the jail post. The controller offered an alternate suggestion of placing part of the cost for the jail post on the z-list and allocating the remaining costs elsewhere. However, the motion passed 4-2 with Commissioners Schaefer, Celentino, Dragonetti, and Koenig supporting it and Commissioners DeLeon and Tsernoglou voting no. Commissioner Koenig unsuccessfully moved to reconsider. Commissioners felt strongly that we need to keep the jail post open. Unfortunately we may be setting a bad precedent by attempting to use undesignated fund balance to balance our budget. If we do end up using the full amount this will be the highest amount of undesignated fund balance the county has ever used. It is very likely that the Finance Committee will adjust our recommendations before sending the Sheriff’s budget on to the full board."

Commissioner Carol Koenig, Chair of the Judiciary Committee Committee reported:

"All divisions of the judiciary accepting the Controller's recommended budget. The one caveat given by the chair was that if the budget change proposed in Law Enforcement (namely leaving the jail post open) was adopted, the additional pre-trial investigator position for the courts would probably not be filled."

The Finance Committee's job is to put the budget back together. They had to look at all of the requests on the z-list to see what should receive the $300,000. They also had to review the $500,000 taken from the reserves. My understanding is that MOST OF the Health Department needs were taken care of by allowing grant dollars to be counted towards these positions in the budget. A Sheriff Deputy position was also restored thanks to an arrangement arrived at between the Sheriff and the collective bargaining units. The z-list money ($300,000) will all be used for the jail post. We will then look to rent out the 64 beds in the post of the jail that was closed a few years ago. If that is successful, that money ($150,000) will be used to make up the remainder of the cost of keeping the jail post open (with a little coming from the 2013 contingency fund). The other z-list requests, including a communications officer at the Health Department, a full time position in the parks, and a detective in the Sheriff's Department were not funded. It seems that the Health Department may be able to fund the communications position by moving other funding around, but that is still being worked out.

I am interested in hearing the final result presented to the entire Board of Commissioners. It seems that Finance and the Controller got creative, but I am glad that they were able to come up with plausible alternatives that did not take money from the county reserves.

Well, that's it. That's plenty. Sorry this is so long!