NORWICH – Before Chenango County Treasurer William Evans retires, as was announced earlier in June, the county supervisors who sit on the Public Works Committee have a job left for him to do: Budget employee benefits per government department, not in one lump sum.
That lump sum amounts to about $8 million for this year, the majority of which goes for employee hospitalizations and pensions. Some departments, such as social services and mental hygiene services, already report contractual expenses related to fringe benefits, but not all.
“Why don’t we have them (listed) in every department?” asked Chenango County Supervisor Peter C. Flanagan, D-Preston, during the committee’s June meeting. “It’s hard to tell all of the costs associated with these departments when making budgeting decisions.”
For 15 years, the supervisor from Preston said he has requested benefit details outlined per department. He came close to getting some answers in late 2008 when Evans said he would convene a work session the following year to inform committees of the amounts per department. Even though Flanagan has said supervisors don’t need to see individual prescription costs, Evans insisted that providing the information in open session would be prohibited by federal privacy laws.
Whether or not county supervisors learned the benefit tallies per department within executive sessions held last year is unknown.
In particular, Flanagan has pushed for the details within the highway, landfill and recycling operations budgets because he said an original stipulation for beginning the business of recycling in the county was contingent upon having the department paid for by users, not by all taxpayers. Recycling revenues typically exceed projections at year’s end and surplus is used, in part, to afford bond payments for the Chenango County Public Safety Facility.
Flanagan said he looked forward to 2012 when the last bond is paid off and the amount can be kept within the recycling budget and used to afford personnel and fringe.
He has also pointed out, more recently, that retirement benefits paid to the 64 corrections officers employed at the county jail are some of the highest amounts in the county. When the number of inmates began declining last year and continued into this year, Flanagan suggested letting some officers go in order to save future retirement expenses. (A previously vacated pod at the jail was recently opened to meet an increasing inmate population.)
“They are going to have a 20 to 25 year package when they retire. They will take the bulk of the county’s payout,” he said, referring to the officers. Evans has confirmed that pension payouts in Corrections had increased about 14 to 15 percent since the jail was built and fully staffed three years ago.
This year, Flanagan has the support of the committee’s new chairman, Supervisor Linda E. Natoli, R-City of Norwich, who replaced longtime chairman Harry Conley of Sherburne, who retired. Conley voted against his own committee’s resolutions on more than one occasion.
Natoli concurred with Flanagan, saying, “We ought to know what each department is costing us.”
Back in April, Supervisor James Bays, D-Smyrna, asked about the release of an actuarial valuation of postretirement health care benefits for Chenango County. The findings, conducted by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board for the period of Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2008, found that healthcare plan benefits, which provide medical, dental, and vision benefits to eligible retirees and their spouses, will cost the county nearly $7 million per year going forward.
Chenango County paid only $1.5 million on behalf of 94 employees in 2008.
Self Insurance Administrator RC Woodford said the lesser amount “was the actual amount for our retirees.” He explained the report’s findings aggregate the long-term obligations over 30 years, and are meant to be used as a tool to determine future years’ budgets.
The benefits are funded with property and sale tax collections, and Woodford said the county had “no trouble” affording them.
Bays and Flanagan have asked the full board during its monthly meetings and in committee whether Evans and the county’s Finance Committee had formulated a plan for the future expense.
Flanagan moved a resolution onto the Finance Committee requesting that a breakdown of all employee benefit costs be included in the Public Works Department budgets and in all other departments’ budgets as well. Supervisor George Seneck, R-Guilford, seconded the motion. It passed unanimously.
“There’s some pretty incredible liabilities in the future according to the GASBY report,” Flanagan said. “Let’s have discussion, and in-depth ones, while Bill is still here about this before he leaves.”
“Maybe we’ll have to scruff up to money for a different accounting system. But, it might be the time, especially because we are having a change of guard in the treasurer’s office,” Natoli said.
In the past, Evans, who has been on the job for 24 years, has warned lawmakers to be aware of changes in and additional expenses for retirement.