[RP TownTalk] Change in Government

Wed Mar 9 14:37:28 UTC 2016

Some interesting points were raised in Alan's response that I believe merit further discussion.

Alan is correct in that Section 205 allows for the Mayor to participate in debates currently (as they would going forward in the proposed voting member scheme), but so does Roberts Rules of Order.  However, Roberts Rules is clear what this means:
              -Chapter 12, Section 43 (Rule Against the Chair's Participation in Debate): "If the presiding officer is a member of the society, he has - as an individual - the same rights in debate as any other member; BUT [JE emphasis added] the impartiality required of the chair in an assembly precludes his exercising these rights while he is presiding. Normally, especially in a large body, he should have nothing to say on the merits of pending questions.  On certain occasions - which should be extremely rare - the presiding officer may believe that a crucial factor relating to such a question has been overlooked and that his obligation as a member to call attention to the point outweighs his duty to preside at that time.  To participate in debate, he must relinquish the chair; and in such a case he should turn the chair over.......The presiding officer who relinquished the chair then should not return to it until the pending main question has been disposed of, since he has shown himself to be a partisan as far as that particular matter is concerned.  Indeed, unless a presiding officer is EXTREMELY SPARING [JE emphasis added] in leaving the chair to take part in debate, he may destroy members' confidence in the impartiality of his approach to the task of presiding."

In layman terms what this means is that the responsibility of heading a body and the decorum of that body require and expect an impartial chair at all times.  Although our Charter and Roberts Rules provides to mechanism to participate, one should not participate as chair or enter the fray due to a disagreement with Council opinions or out of opinion's sake on a fact or question being actively debated; ONLY if that fact or question has been overlooked and then requires the chair to step down as chair and provide edification to the Council until the vote has been decided.  As has been my experience on Council, this has never happened.

I bring this point up because it is not a hypothetical.  In the last three terms this exact question has risen repeatedly with the chair actively lobbying against a Council policy position:

1)      Cafritz Negotiations

2)      Crescent City Oxygen Tank Enclosure

3)      Quality of new home builds

To be fair, the Chair, more often than not HAS stayed out of the discussion, but when, as Chair they enter the debate (to the extent of having policy memos drafted by staff attempting to 'show' why a Council opinion is incorrect), predictably the loss of faith of impartiality has ensued.  I do not want to take the bet of what will happen when the Chair is added as a full-time voting member.

The town has been moving in this direction, despite at least my individual objections, from a budget and staffing point of view.  In the last couple budget cycles, the prepared budget insisted we needed an HR Manager as well as a CFO (chief financial officer).  These positions, fully loaded with benefit costs, are six-figure costs to the town.  We have yet, to my knowledge, employed an independent audit of our government functions to evaluate what our optimal staffing model 'should' look like.

I do ask the taxpayers though, if between the Mayor as our chief fiduciary and what we used to have as a part time contracted (no benefits) licensed CPA the total cost was in the neighborhood of ~$50,000 and got the job done, why would we change our form of government, employ a CFO, and spend an additional ~$100,000 for the sake of looking more like Greenbelt, a city 3 times our size?

Fiscal Year Budget on Staff Salaries:
2016 -$450,000
2015 - $349,000

That is a 30% increase year to year in salary increases.  Our pension plan assumes single digit increases.  Our already woefully under/unfunded pension liability is now even more so.  Our actuaries assume, when they work with the town, that their assumptions are correct.  We aren't even in the same ballpark.  The current pension valuation model that has been reported by our actuaries is likely to realistically be <50% (i.e. we only have assets to cover ½ of our current and future pension liabilities).  A healthy plan would be in the mid 80% range or more.

In full disclosure, one of my day jobs is providing HR, pension, payroll, and benefits management consulting services to clients which include commercial multi-national companies, federal agencies, small municipalities, medium sized County governments, and large state agencies.  My continued criticisms with our current staff structure and proposed future direction draws upon this 20+ years of operational experience.  For the last few years I have patiently waited for quantitative, independent analysis of the problem; this has not happened.

I continue to ask the same question - what problem are we trying to solve?

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