WESTFIELD – The Finance Committee, chaired by Ward 5 Councilor Robert A. Paul, Sr. with At-large Council members Matthew T. VanHeynigen and Dave Flaherty, convened Thursday at 5:15 p.m. just before the 6 p.m. scheduled public hearing on the medical district. In front of the committee was the ordinance to add a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) position to the city. Also on the agenda were transfers, appropriations and a managed appropriation reduction of $1.5 million from the Mayor’s office, requested for immediate consideration at the prior City Council meeting on October 18, but objected to by Flaherty and sent to Finance. It takes only one objection by a Councilor to end immediate consideration of an item.
Also present at the meeting were a majority of city councilors and Mayor Brian P. Sullivan along with multiple city department heads in support of the Mayor’s requests.
The first of the Mayor’s requests, Item #2 was a transfer of $100,000 from the Health Insurance Benefits account to the Stabilization Fund Balance account, which came from savings gained in a two-week employee health care holiday in October. Paul asked if there was any discussion.
“I don’t think we should be transferring anything from Health Insurance anywhere but into OPEB (Other Post Employee Benefits),” Flaherty said. He said the latest press release on the City’s AA Bond Rating, recently upheld by Standard and Poor’s referred to the city’s agreement with the public employee committee regarding OPEB.
Flaherty said he had an email from City Treasurer Meghan Kane that talked about the Health Trustees’ request that health care holiday savings be used for OPEB and potentially for stabilization.
Mayor Brian P. Sullivan responded to Flaherty by noting that he was talking about two different pay periods. He said in March there would be a full month health care holiday, and he plans to transfer $600,000 into OPEB, which was agreed to by the Trust.
Flaherty said a note he had was dated August (2014) from a second group, a public employee committee meeting with then Mayor Knapik that stated any savings would go into OPEB.
Paul said to Flaherty, “You have your opinion.” He said the city has received an AA rating from Standard & Poor’s. Paul made a motion to approve the transfer, which passed 2-1, with Flaherty dissenting.
Item #3 was a transfer of $100,000 to OPEB, also from the half-month health care holiday in October. Paul said the letter from the Mayor was a request for transfer and for approval. The motion passed with a 3-0 recommendation.
The Finance Committee then suspended the meeting to call city councilors into the public hearing for the medical district zone, scheduled in City Council chambers for 5:45 p.m. Paul said he intended to return following the hearing and continue the meeting.
When the public hearing on the medical district closed, Council President Brent B. Bean, II opened and immediately closed the City Council meeting to give the Finance Committee an opportunity to reconvene. Paul attempted to reconvene the meeting, but could not get a consensus to do so from the Finance Committee members. He apologized to the department heads who had been waiting for an hour, and said he would reopen and then immediately close the meeting because it had been suspended.
After the meeting was reopened, Police Captain Michael McCabe said the Finance Committee had certain items on the agenda that had been requested for immediate consideration, but at the last Council meeting had been referred to the Finance Committee. McCabe asked if they now had to wait two weeks for those items. He was referring to Item #5, the request for an appropriation of $125,000 from the stabilization fund to purchase six vehicles for the police department. That question went unanswered then the meeting was closed.
FINANCE COMMITTEE REPORT TO CITY COUNCIL
During the Reports from Committees, Paul brought forward the items from the Finance Committee. He said the committee met and voted 2-1 to move the edited draft ordinance adding a CFO for the City of Westfield to the L&O Committee. O’Connell, who serves on L&O, requested that the edits be given to the committee, “so we have something in front of us.” The motion passed unanimously.
Paul then brought forward the 2-1 recommendation to transfer $100,000 from the Health Benefits account to the stabilization fund balance. Paul said he had a letter and request from the Mayor.
During the discussion, Flaherty repeated that he was opposed to putting health care savings into anything but the OPEB account. He then referred to the OPEB working group under Mayor Knapik, which only suggested savings be payable to OPEB. Flaherty said it was signed by Mayor Knapik, employees and retirees. Flaherty said the same intention was reflected in the August minutes of the Health Trustees. Flaherty said the latest Bond rating referenced that committee (it referenced the PEC committee.)
“That’s interesting, because if I recall, we have used money from health insurance holidays for many different things,” said Figy.
“I want to speak in general about this whole OPEB,” said At-large Councilor Stephen Dondley. He said he had been in touch with the lobby of Mass Retirees. “It’s their job to look after retirees,” he added. He said he wrote a statement concerning whether future benefit payments to workers are bankrupting the City, and that it is a “zombie myth.” Dondley said in 2034 the city is scheduled to be fully funded, ahead of the state target. ”It’s a good idea to put some money into it, but ridiculous to say we need to start hoarding buckets of cash for decades,” he said. He said he ran his statements by the Mass Retirees, who told him there was no reason to panic.
“This motion is about the Mayor’s request to move $100,000 from health care holiday to stabilization,” Paul said. He said they worked on the budget, and the Mayor believes this money is important to move. “It’s because of our employees’ good health. It’s a very good place that I hope we can move it to,” Paul said.
Beltrandi said he was in favor of taking the money and moving it to help defray taxes from a 4, 5, or 6% increase.” Last year, I paid almost $40,000 in real estate taxes between my house and business. As a taxpayer, I just can’t pay any more,” he said.
“This particular item will not affect taxes. Secondly, the person you (referring to Dondley) spoke to represents public sector employees, I represent taxpayers. In the last year, OPEB went up $32 million. I think we should do our best efforts to meet these obligations,” Flaherty said.
“You can’t debate someone who keeps changing the argument. Two weeks ago, you said you were doing this for public sector employees. Now it’s for taxpayers. I just spoke to someone who represents the public sector. What you are saying is to put away millions of dollars,” Dondley responded, pointing out the impact that would have on the city budget.
“The Mayor made it clear he’s been working to get the police cars that we need desperately,” Paul said. He said that vote didn’t make it, but if the $100,000 goes to the stabilization fund, the Council would then move out $125,000 to purchase six vehicles, also using other funds.
“I did have a conference with McCabe. We’re actually down nine vehicles. These are things that have to be taken care of,” Beltrandi said.
Ward 3 Councilor Andrew Surprise said “pay as you go isn’t working,” referring to OPEB, which he repeated is a $260 million liability “in today’s dollars.” He also referred to Mayor Knapik’s report In 2014. “We need to create a funding policy. This is scrambling to cover taxes,” Surprise said.
A motion to transfer the $100,000 to stabilization was made.
“I have concerns about what people voted on in the past. People voted on this and said this money should go to OPEB,” Babinski said, adding, “I know how many people are concerned and want the tax rate to go down.”
“I read the minutes of the Trustees meeting, and they couldn’t have been clearer. This is not a difficult vote for me.,” said O’Connell.
“I agree with Surprise, this is a band aid. I tend to go along with these things,” At-Large Councilor Dan Allie said.
“The Mayor right now proposed how to provide money to city services, how to provide money to OPEB, how to provide efficiencies of $1.5 million. We have to figure out how to get police cars. We had this two weeks ago. I asked for immediate consideration. This is a pact that the Mayor and the department heads put together,” Paul said. The vote for the motion to transfer passed 10 to 3, with Flaherty, Surprise and O’Connell dissenting.
The next motion by Paul to transfer $100,000 from the October half month health care holiday to OPEB received a unanimous vote. “I think this is a wise move, although at this rate 2600 years before we’re fully funded,” Flaherty said.
“Residents of Westfield should know, Westfield is way ahead of other cities and towns, many of which have none in this fund,” responded Dondley. He said there is now $100,000 on top of $50,000, with another $600,000 planned in the spring.
Paul then came to Item #4, the Mayor’s $1.5 million budget reduction. Paul said the Finance Committee meeting had to be halted and go into suspension because of the public hearing before it could consider this item. “I would like to ask again for immediate consideration of 4, 5, 6, so we can move these forward,” Paul said.
Flaherty said he opposed the motion and it only takes one councilor to oppose a motion for immediate consideration for it to be halted.
“I find it an absolute shame that we’re leaving it in committee,” Paul said, before making the motion to return it to committee.
At that point, Bean switched seats with Paul, and called for a Suspension of the Rules vote. “We can turn the rules off and on. We have a real opportunity here. I completely disagree with some of the councilors here. This is exactly what we want our Mayor’s administration to do as this project progresses,” Bean said, adding that he had never seen this before and that as councilors they need to be flexible. He added that being so close to an election made it difficult, but that “In the end, this is a good thing.”
“The Mayor is the executive, he has done his job. This is a big chunk of money. It’s all good stuff, not cutting anything. We all do our part. The Finance Committee does a fantastic job, as do the other sub-committees. We build a budget before we know how much money we have to spend. We’re healthy, we’re doing well, we’re going to take a 6% increase and move it to 2%,” Bean said, adding that he was the one councilor last year who didn’t want to use Free Cash for the 0% tax increase.
“Our Council rules are put in place to keep order. In the end, this is a good thing. We ran out of time because there was a public hearing,” Bean said, saying there was a motion on the floor to suspend the rules. Flaherty said that it requires a super-majority of 10 to suspend the rules.
Allie asked if they could bring these three items to the floor even though the Finance Committee didn’t act on them. Bean said “In my opinion, yes.”
“Well said, but it’s not about suspending the Council rules, it’s about an open meeting violation rules,” O’Connell said.
“I understand the intent of this, but all of this should happen at budget time. These items don’t have to be voted on tonight. It’s election time, no reason to have this happen tonight. Item #5, police cars, every single year I want those cars in the budget,” Flaherty said, adding, “I’m fully in favor of suspending the rules for Item #5, related to police cars. Item #6 (Appropriation of $68,102 from the PEG designated fund balance to the PEG construction and purchase of services account) doesn’t have to be voted on tonight,” he said asking if anybody believed Item #4 had to be voted tonight.
“You just accused the Mayor of playing some political games because it’s election season,” Dondley said to Flaherty.
“Absolutely. The Mayor said two weeks ago that he had changed his mind,” Flaherty said. “There is no financial reason, no legal reason for us to do this before we set the tax rate,” he added.
Beltrandi made a motion to suspend the rules and vote on Item #4, the managed appropriation reduction of $1.5 million. Flaherty, O’Connell, Surprise, Allie, and Babinski voted no, and the motion failed, and the reduction was sent back to Finance on a vote of 9-4.
Flaherty then made a motion to suspend the rules for Item #5 (the appropriation of $125,000 from the stabilization fund balance to the Police Department, Vehicle Account) and vote for immediate consideration. The vote was unanimous.
Paul then made a motion to suspend the rules for Item #6 (PEG account transfer) and vote for immediate consideration. That vote was also unanimous.
“All the city department heads showed up tonight to the Finance Committee to go over each line item for #4 so they could personally say yes, we want to do this. We’ve been totally irresponsible and not good people. The staff was here all day and all night, and we play games here. It’s pretty disturbing,” Paul said.
Following the meeting, Flaherty commented that the meetings were back to back on Thursday, and the Finance Committee was cut short. “We didn’t have time to deliberate all the items in front of the public and get feedback,” he said, adding, “We need to deliberate before we rubber stamp.”
“We had a real opportunity to reduce taxes for the residents, and that didn’t happen because of parliamentary procedures and misleading by several of the councilors,” said Bean after the meeting.
