The three school committee members who partake of the health insurance benefit available to them have agreed to switch to the Value Option Plan.  Finally.

Although I need to wonder how much this (from the linked article above) factored into their decision:

Prior to the School Committee meeting, Fiorentini produced a legal opinion from City Solicitor William Cox that the mayor could switch the School Committee members into the new plan without their consent. In summary, the legal opinion says the city must make health insurance available to members of the City Council and School Committee that want it, but that the mayor has the authority to decide which health care plan is offered.

Nothing like making the change voluntarily now that they know their existing plan won’t be available forever.  And I really love how conscientious everyone is about making sure the details are available and that everyone is happy with the plan.  Do these folks realize the rest of the working world simply gets a notice that their insurance has been changed and to change doctors and plan accordingly.  The notice generally also outlines the increases in premiums, co-pays and prescription costs as well.

The whole health insurance situation is untenable and I wish as a society we had a better method of dealing with it but the reality of health insurance is that it is the most expensive benefit employers offer.  Companies across the country have made cuts to health care and people across the country have had to make adjustments to their lives because of those cuts.  As much as I sympathize with individuals who will face rising costs because of this – as a tax payer I am also a shareholder in the business of the City of Haverhill.

Inquiring about the benefits offered to the members of the Haverhill School Committee I was pointed at this section of Massachusetts General Laws.

(d) “Employee”, any person in the service of a governmental unit or whose services are divided between two or more governmental units or between a governmental unit and the commonwealth, and who receives compensation for such service or services, whether such person be employed, appointed or elected by popular vote, and any employee of a free public library maintained in a city or town to the support of which said city or town annually contributes not less than one half of the cost; provided, the duties of such person require no less than twenty hours, regularly, in the service of the governmental unit during the regular work week of permanent or temporary employment, and provided, further that no seasonal employee or emergency employees shall be included; except that persons elected by popular vote may be considered eligible employees during the entire term for which they are elected regardless of the number of hours devoted to the service of the governmental unit. A member of a call fire department or other volunteer emergency service agency serving a municipality shall be considered an employee, if approved by vote of the municipal legislative body, and the municipality shall charge such individual 100 per cent of the premium. If an employee’s services are divided between governmental units, the employee shall, for the purposes of this chapter, be considered an employee of the governmental unit which pays more than fifty per cent of his salary. But, if no one of said governmental units pays more than fifty per cent of said employee’s salary, the governmental unit paying the largest share of the salary shall consider the employee as its own for membership purposes, and said governmental unit shall contribute fifty per cent of the cost of the premium. If the payment of an employee’s salary is equally divided between governmental units, the governmental unit having the larger or largest population shall contribute fifty per cent of the cost of the premium. If an employee’s salary is divided in any manner between a governmental unit and the commonwealth, the governmental unit shall contribute fifty per cent of the cost of the premium. An employee eligible for coverage under the provisions of this chapter shall not be eligible for coverage as an employee under the provisions of chapter thirty-two A. Teachers and all other public school employees shall be deemed to be employees during the months of July and August for purposes of this chapter; provided, however, that employee contributions for such health insurance for those two months are deducted from the compensation paid for services rendered during the previous school year. A determination by the appropriate public authority that a person is eligible for participation in the plan of insurance shall be final. Nothing in this paragraph shall apply to Worcester county or its employees.

So from what I read above as long as an elected official receives compensation – in this instance in the form of a stipend – for their position they must be granted health benefits and pension benefits.  Unfortunately this still doesn’t answer my original question of where the motion is by the City Council providing the stipend.

I’ve also unearthed another question that I must scour past budgets and meeting minutes to find an answer to.  At some point members of the School Committee may have voted to raise their stipend and if that is true then I must question their authority to do that for themselves.

Back in October I learned that our elected committee members earn more than just their stipend.  I had forgotten about this until I saw the line item in this year’s budget to cover the health insurance for our committee members.  It was again at the forefront of my thoughts when the Mayor spoke at the last school committee meeting encouraging those members to adopt the new Value Option health insurance program that is currently being offered to all our municipal employees.

I did a bit of Googling to try and ascertain what the going rate for a school committee member was in the Bay State before I made too much of these benefits.  I didn’t find a lot online but I did find this in the Massachusetts General Laws:

Section 52. The school committee shall serve without compensation, except that a member of a school committee of a city, town, regional school district or superintendency union may be compensated for his services by a majority vote of the city council in a city having a Plan D or Plan E charter; in a city not having a Plan D or Plan E charter by vote of the city council, subject to the provisions of the charter of such a city; in a town by a majority vote at a town meeting; and in a regional school district or school superintendency by a majority vote of the voting member towns authorized at their respective town meetings, the amount of such compensation, in each case, to be set by the respective cities, towns or groups of towns. No member of a school committee in any town shall be eligible to the position of teacher, or superintendent of public schools therein, or in any union school or superintendency union or district in which his town participates.

So I started looking to see what plan our city fell under (Plan A) and what the language was in the charter or what ordinance was passed by the city council to provide for the compensation of the school committee.  I was unable to find specific language in either our city charter or any of the ordinances since passed to shed any light on my search although I did find plenty of information on the stipends provided for the City Council and on the responsibility of our School Committee.  If you would like to browse our charter and local laws you can find both here. That link is provided by the City of Haverhill website here.

My next stop will be the City Clerk’s office.  Wish me luck.

Every time I read the blurb in the paper about City Council Members making $8000/year and School Committee Members making $5000/year I wonder if the public knows what else our elected officials make.

These positions come with the opportunity to enroll in the City’s health insurance plan.  This benefit has an approximate cash value of $15,000/year.  A good deal for some extremely part time work.  Private sector part time employees are hard pressed to find a job where they work for approximately 3 hours a week which provides full time health benefits.

Also, each year of public service in this part time capacity entitles members to a full year credit towards a city pension.  Fear not that you would retire at a percentage of that $5000 or $8000 salary!  If the elected official in question has held any other city employment over their time they will retire at a percentage of their best pay!

Pity not the seemingly poor compensation of our elected officials.  What they don’t earn in dollars they make up in benefits!