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VERMONT
AGENDA
SOUTH BURLINGTON CITY COUNCIL
City Hall Conference Room
575 Dorset Street
SOUTH BURLINGTON,VERMONT
REGULAR MEETING 7:00 P.M. Monday, Oct 4, 2010
1. Comments and Questions from the public(not related to the Agenda).
2. Announcements and City Manager's Report.
a. Assistant City Manager Appointee Bob Rusten met with some staff members Friday morning.
He will be assuming his duties October 25.
b. Bob and I will be attending the VMERS Board meeting pursuant to the action taken by City
Council Sept. 27 as described below.
c. Audit Review Committee: Met and selected firms to be interviewed next week. The
Committee hopes to have a recommendation to CC for appointment at the Oct. 25th meeting.
d. CCMPO has a new policy and is now requesting signatures from the CM and CC Chair for
support of certain grant projects. We are being asked to support the SR2S project—which
will assess and recommend sidewalk and bicycle access improvements at the Orchard
School.
e. The Dog Park Grand Opening has been rescheduled for Saturday, Oct. 9th from 10 a.m. to 2
p.m. with a "ribbon cutting" at 11 a.m.
3. Report on Actions Taken at Sept 20 and Sept 27, 2010 City Council Meetings.
• Sept 20,2010
o ICMA Ethics charge against Chuck Hafter: Announce the unanimous City Council vote to
send a letter to ICMA. We have posted this on our website.
o Appointments to boards, committees, and commissions:
• A list of appointees is attached.
• One caveat is regarding the DRB Alternate. Paul had discussions with John
Dinklage, the entire DRB and Roseanne Greco. In what I think is a wise move,
the DRB wants to come up with a protocol (or a couple of options), regarding
how to best use alternates so the effort is meaningful for all concerned. They are
drafting possible guidelines and would like to have CC adopt them. I believe
Roseanne wants to see what these are before she commits to being an alternate.
Therefore, I suggest you not"announce" this appointment Monday night.
• Also, to my knowledge, we haven't heard back from John Simson regarding his
interest, or lack of, in the Charter Committee.
• Sept 27, 2010
o Resolution to request VMERS allow the City to join the system for some non-union, non-
public safety employees: Council voted unanimously to start this process. I've contacted
VMERS and it will be on the October 26th agenda. Bob Rusten and I will be attending
that meeting. We've posted the Resolution on our website.
4. Appointment of CCMPO Representative: Sandy Dooley has expressed interest in being appointed to
this position.
5. ***Stormwater Permit takeover in Stormwater Impaired Watershed at Winding Brook. Director of
Public Works, Justin Rabidoux: A detailed memo from Tom Dipietro regarding this stormwater permit
takeover is in your packet. Other than the fact that this is the first time we're doing this for a permit in
an impaired waterway (so we want to bring this to CC), I can't think of a way to summarize this issue.
So, please read Tom's memo.
6. ***Resolution establishing a policy requiring financial firms to present findings to City Council: This
policy was requested by Council. It requires the City Manager to make sure the City's Independent
Auditor, Actuaries and Investment Manager meet with CC annually.
7. Approve a Resolution Allowing for Requisition of Funds for Two Municipal Planning Grants:
According to VCDP processes, they require an individual to be"named" in order to requisition funds.
This Resolution names me as the official in charge of the requisition of these funds. This is a
ministerial action and has no impact on the projects involved.
8. Airport update
a. The airport will be doing ten days of testing before and ten days of testing after the living wall
is constructed.
b. All this from Brad Worthen in response to Meaghan's inquiry (except as otherwise noted). _
Noise monitoring equipment has been ordered and will begin arriving on Monday. Testing is
not likely to begin on Monday but it will commence soon and will be occurring only on days
when there are F-16 sorties. There are one or two evening flights which won't be coming in
for at least a couple of weeks. Brad reports the testing will be based on the F-16s and the
overall 65dnI level and he says it doesn't make sense to hold the program up. He said the
question is whether or not two more commercial flights will make a difference and I agreed
that that is a question.
c. Here is Brian Searles'e-mail from this morning(Friday, Oct. 1st): Full runway back this PM.
Hard closure continues for 2 weeks but no significant effect on flight ops from here on out -
Brian
d. I do not know whether BIA will have a representative at the CC meeting Oct. 4th
e. I met with Peter Plumeau today and expressed my opinions about BIA and this most recent
issue involving noise testing. He largely agreed and said he would take these concerns back
to BIA and Brian Searles.
f. You should also be aware Brad Worthen contacted Paul Conner this afternoon to offer him
the opportunity to provide input into where the noise monitoring will take place. Peter
Plumeau was still in the hallway and he, Paul and I conferred. I concluded we are not
qualified to suggest placements—what, after all, is BIA hiring an expert to do? Therefore, we
would ask for a copy of their noise monitoring equipment placements instead of participating
in the meeting Oct. 4th. I'll think about this and whether or not one of us should go strictly as
an "observer", but I think if we get the map that should be sufficient. I think we are simply not
qualified to participate in that discussion.
9. *** Discussion of a potential merger of the CCMPO & CCRPC, Charles Baker& Michele
Boomhower: The letter from the CCMPO and CCRPC is in your packet. I recommend CC support
this preliminary decision to merge and urge the MPO and RPC to take the necessary steps to
advance the merger.
10. ***Consideration of Entertainment permit: Nightmare VT/South Burlington Rotary Club,
Oct. 21, 22, 23, 28, 29 and 30. Picard Circle (approve with a conditional approval contingent on the
Fire Marshall giving his approval): The Fire Marshall's list of items for consideration will not be
available for review until Monday, Oct. 4th, therefore, it is not in your packet; he promises it will be
available Monday.
11. ***Reconvene as Liquor Control Board to consider Liquor License for Maplefields, 811 Williston Rd.
(approve with a conditional approval contingent on fire inspection): This is for the former"Spillane's"
service station next to Staples Plaza. While there is no building yet, they would like the license as
soon as practical. Therefore, our recommendation is to consider this contingent on a fire inspection.
12. ***Review and approve minutes from the regular meeting held September 20, 2010. The minutes
arrive only today, so we were not able to implement the new process whereby we would send them to
you well in advance and you could send your comments/corrections in ahead of time.
13. Sign disbursement orders. Self-explanatory.
14. Consider entering executive session to discuss personnel, contract negotiations and potential
litigation:
a. More special deal benefits issues—this time involving special considerations to Trevor
Whipple.
b. Personnel matters.
c. Discussion about decision points regarding benefits, etc.: Based on the issues I outline in my
CM Update, I think there are a number of issues CC has to decide as a matter of policy.
While I've taken interim measures on some of these items, we may need to amend Plan
Documents (or not). In any case, these are policy matters which I believe CC needs to
address. If you are comfortable making some of these decisions Monday night, that is fine.
Otherwise, we can wait until Oct. 25th as we are already operating along these lines.
i. Part-time Pensions: Can we afford to have part-timers to work more than 999 hours?
This adds 22.5% based on last year's actuarial analysis to our costs.
ii. Part-time Benefits: Can we afford to have part-times get pro-rated vacation, sick and
holiday pay? For newly hired, non-public safety employees earning the lowest level
of time accruals adds approximately 20%to the cost of the part-time person.
iii. Compensatory Time: As I mention in the CM Update, I'll be doing a thorough
evaluation of compensatory time and will, in due course, have a recommendation as
part of the "scrub"we'll need to do for the Personnel Rules and Regulations.
iv. Health Insurance: Our rates came in at 7.39% increase. I hope to have a preliminary
analysis and model Monday night regarding "converting" management/confidential
employees from the HP 10/20 C traditional indemnity program to the High Deductible
2250/4500 and show potential savings. I would like to try to have CC decide this Oct.
25th or Nov. 1st
v. Life Insurance; You will need to decide (presumably at the same time you make a
decision about the idea of using the life insurance 2x salary concept as a sweetener
for management/confidential employees to switch to the new plan and creating this
as a model for union/represented employees.
d. Hafter:
i. Update on information regarding ICMA ethics charge (do you want me to follow-up
along the lines I suggested in my e-mail last week?).
ii. Further review of pension information.
e. Attendance Policy: Should this include representatives to regional boards and commissions
as well as members of City boards, commissions and committees? With this information we'll
be ready to put this on the agenda for October 25th
15. Adjourn
Respectfully Submitted:
Sanford I. Miller, City Manager
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Sanford I.Miller,City Manager
smitler@sburl.com
September 22,2010
Ms. Martha Perego, ICMA Director of Ethics
ICMA Professional Conduct Committee
ICMA
777 North Capitol Street, NE, Ste. 500
Washington, DC 20002-4201
Re: ICMA Member Charles Hafter
Dear Ms. Perego:
I write on behalf of the City Council of the City of South Burlington,Vermont. This
communication represents a concern under ICMA's Code of Ethics relating to the conduct of our former
City Manager and ICMA member Charles Hafter. As we read the ICMA Code of Ethics,we did not
receive the level of service we believe the community was entitled to.
We believe that Mr. H-after did not adhere to ICMA's professional standards, specifically Tenets 3,
4, 5,9 and 12 of ICMA's Code of Ethics, in connection with his failure to disclose to the City Council, and
to the citizens of South Burlington, a significant underfunding of the City's defined benefit pension plan
We believe his failure to disclose significant information in a timely fashion did not represent the
highest ideals of honor and integrity in our public relationship,and certainly did not engender respect
and confidence of the public in elected officials (Tenet#3).
We believe these failures did not meet the standards set for the chief function of local
government, which is to serve the interests of all the people (Tenet#4).
We are convinced the course of Mr. Hafter's conduct failed to provide the City's elected officials
with critically important facts and advice on matters of policy(the funding level of our pension program)
as a basis for making decisions and implementing local government policies(Tenet#5).
We believe Mr. Hafter's failures resulted in the community not being properly informed and
interfered with the community's ability to effectively communicate with its local government officers.
Therefore, we believe Mr. Hafter acted in a manner that did not improve the quality and image of public
service (Tenet#9).
Finally,we are concerned Mr. Hafter exercised his role as City Manager in a way that resulted in
personal benefit in the form of enhanced pension rights at the expense of the actuarial soundness of the
overall fund (Tenet#12).
We believe the seriousness of the matter is compounded as a result of benefit increases granted
to employee groups negotiated by Mr. Hafter with unions representing City employees,thereby
increasing the stress on the pension program. We believe there was insufficient communication with
the City Council and with the public as to whether such increases were affordable and sustainable.
More specifically, it has recently been called to the attention of the City Council by Mr. Hafter's
successor as City Manager that the City's defined benefit pension program is less than 50%fully funded.
The Council had never been informed of this most significant deficiency by Mr. Hafter. As a result,the
current status is that without significant additional funding,the plan will not be financially able to
sustain its obligations to those present employees who will be retiring in the future and expecting a
pension benefit in accordance with the plan specifications.
On information and belief,the City Council asserts that adequate information concerning the
underfunding of the pension plan was regularly provided to Mr. Hafter by the plan's actuaries.
However,this critical information was not forwarded to the City Council or to the general public.
Instead, Mr. Halter continuously reassured the City Council collectively and its members individually that
the pension fund was in good standing. Additionally,there is concern that the City's annual financial
statements,the preparation of which was a part of the City Manager's responsibilities, obfuscated the
extent to which the City's pension program was underfunded.
The City Council believes that Mr. Hafter knew or should have known that the underfunding
level of the City's pension plan had developed to the point that a remedial plan should have been
prepared and implemented. By way of illustration,the City Council notes that were this plan subject to
direct regulation under ERISA, it would have been mandatory to freeze benefit levels and commence a
plan of remediation once the funding level fell below 80%of full funding.
The City Council is concerned that Mr. Hafter, as the city's chief negotiator, may have agreed to
improved benefit levels for unionized South Burlington employees with the understanding that such
increased benefits would personally benefit him. This could represent a conflict of interest.
The City Council requests that in accordance with ICMA's Rules of Procedure for Enforcement,
the Director of Ethics initiate an investigation and/or other appropriate proceedings to determine
whether violations of the Code of Ethics have occurred and, if so,what sanctions under such Rules of
Procedure for Enforcement should be imposed. The City Council stands willing to provide any additional
information and detail relating to the concerns expressed in this communication as may be determined
to be necessary or desirable for ICMA to form appropriate conclusions as to whether the Tenets of the
Code of Ethics have been violated.
We look forward to your prompt and thorough consideration of this matter.
Very truly yours,
CITY OF SOUTH BURLINGTON,VERMONT
By:
City Council Chair
c: City Councilors
MONTHLY PREMIUMS
EFFECTIVE: JANUARY 1, 2011 - DECEMBER 31, 2011
City of South Burlington
2010'' 2010 2011 2011
Current RATES City Cost RATES City Cost
w/$50 RX Ded. For All Employees w/$50 RX Ded. For All Employees
PLAN COVERAGE COUNT $5/10/25 In that category $5/10/25 In that category
Annual Premium Per 90%city contribution 10%employee contribution Deduct/co-pays Total Employee Cost
*HP 10/20 C One Person 35 $ 613.46 $ 257,653.20 $ 658.81 $ 276,700.20 $ 7,905.72 $ 7,115.15 $ 790.57 $ 175.00 $ 965.57
$10/$20 Office Visit Copay Two Persons 39 $ 1,226.92`, $ 574,198.56 $ 1,317.61 $ 616,641.48 $ 15,811.32 $ 14,230.19 $ 1,581.13 $ 350.00 $ 1,931.13
Family 34 $ 1,656.34 $ 675,786.72 $ 1,778.78 $ 725,742.24 $ 21,345.36 $ 19,210.82 2,134.54 $ 450.00 $ 2,584.54
Total $ 1,507,638.48 Total Premium $ 1,619,083.92 7.39%
*GOLB C(Carveout) One Person 7 $ 432.49 $ 36,329.16 $ 465.17 $ 39,074.28 7.56%
$20 Office Visit Copay Two Persons
Family
*Based on rates filed with BISHCA but not yet approved and subject to approval by CIGNA $ 1,543,967.64
$ 1,658,158.20
HDHP 2250.4500 Total i p r employee City Deductible Employee Cost
City Premium City Deductible Premium plu ci d uctible By Group Employee Cost/Deduct
*HDHP 2250/4500 One Person 35 N/A $ 473.11 $ 198,706.20 $ 5,677.32 $ 1,250.00 $ 6,927.32 $ 43,750.00 $ 1,000.00
Two Persons 39 N/A $ 804.29 $ 376,407.72 $ 9,651.48 $ 2,500.00 $ 12,151.48 $ 97,500.00 $ 2,000.00
Family 34 N/A $ 1,182.78 $ 482,574.24 $ 14,193.36 $ 2,000.00 $ 16,193.36 $ 68,000.00 $ 2,500.00
City Premium $ 1,057,688.16
$ 209,250.00
City Deductible $ 209,250.00
City Total HDHP C $ 1,266,938.16
Premium Qtlptes Provided By VLCT Health Trust
management Group Savings Per Policy Extension Other�tattons&Protect CJuCtible btstrtbt.ttton8, �r .. ,
t3ral� 'tOI�U"lf1 .-.1,,,,.. � � � �
One Person 3 $ 187.83 $ 563.48 �� �
Two Person 5 $ 2,078.71 $ 10,393.54
_ �y
Family 8 $ 3,017.46 $ 24,139.71 4 t ,r k ;;fir �, 4, _ * 4,,,,3 V, �
$ 35,096.74
3 opt out, one position vacant