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ECAC Meeting Minutes 10/3/13
Employee Compensation Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes
Date: 10/3/13 at 4pm
Present:  Muriel Lazzarini, Daniel Moriarty, Mickey Jervas, Gareth Backhaus, Maynard Forbes, Larry Klein, Chris Tryon and Fiona DeRis
Absent: Melissa Noe

  • The minutes from 9/5/13 need to be reviewed further and will be approved at the November meeting.
  • Muriel apologized for not yet presenting the information to the Select Board with regards to the vacation/sick leave/time off tracking module for the accounting software but she will do so on Monday.  Currently employees are tracking their time off themselves.  Adding this software was recommended as it would create a check and balance to tracking time off and by having the information appear on paychecks.  In the past this was tracked by Barbara Gauthier and subsequently discontinued when the new accountant took over. This caused some headaches in trying to go back and figure out how much time everyone had accumulated.  It was agreed that there needs to be a town wide system.
  • The Committee reviewed the job descriptions for the Library Assistants, Accountant and Assessor’s Clerk and suggested the following changes be made:
  • Format: remove “definitions” and any salary figures.
  • Muriel will follow up with the Assessor’s to find out if this position is hourly or paid by a stipend.
  • Follow up on appointment term for Accountant
  • PPO’s: The Committee continued their review of the 3 plans we have to choose from.  The Committee agreed to recommend that the Select Board require the employee that chooses a PPO over an HMO to pay the difference in cost.  For example if the town covers $1,000 of the comparable HMO and the PPO is $1200, the employee would be responsible for the additional $200.  The Committee also was going to recommend that all 3 policies be offered to the employee and they can choose which plan best fits their needs.
  • Retiree health benefits: M. Noe provided corrected information regarding a conversation from last month’s meeting.  M. Noe spoke with Berkshire County Retirement (BCR) and they informed her that any public employee that is vested for 10 years can leave a position and work somewhere else like a bank and when they reach 55 (for those hired before 4/2/12) and 60 (for those hired after 4/2/12) will be eligible to collect retiree health benefits from the last public job they worked at if they left voluntarily and did not cash out their retirement money with Berkshire County Retirement.~ She said that it works the other way too, if someone works for Gt. Barrington for 20 years and then works here for 3 months and decides to retire from here, Monterey is responsible for paying their retiree benefits.  BCR did say that sometime in Oct they are working on legislation that would require the above scenario to be split between the towns (3/4 of the bill to GB and ¼ of the bill to us).~ To sum it up there isn’t anything a town can do to prevent someone from collecting retiree health benefits if they’ve met the eligibility requirements of the retirement system.  Muriel distributed a shortened version of the Governor’s proposal to make changes to these requirements (which can be found here: http://www.mma.org/labor-and-personnel/7421) which the MMA is opposed to.
  • The Committee reviewed article 18 on the 2006 annual town meeting warrant regarding MGL Ch.32B, Sec 9 and Sec 18. and the seeming contradiction between the two sections dealing with retiree health benefit contributions.  The article was passed in 2006.   After a discussion about the confusing wording in the article, as well as conflicting statements in the minutes of the meeting it was agreed to follow up with the Select Board, the Town Clerk and the Attorney General’s office on this.
  • The handbook subcommittee will meet to make corrections/amendments to the handbook with regards to:
  • Retiree Group Life Insurance – the manual does not currently the address the retiree’s options.  Current employees receive a $10,000 policy at a 75/25 split with the town.
  • Amend the health insurance eligibility section to include that employees hired after September 16, 2013 can receive coverage immediately and will pay their contributions as they go rather than one month in advance as employees hired prior to September 16, 2013 do.
  • Update and create a uniform probationary period.  Maynard suggested that the appointing authority determine the probationary period.
  • The salary subcommittee will set up a meeting to begin working on:
  • Salary ranges for the highway department with a possible 4th highway person added to it
  • Salaries for FY15 for all paid positions: Muriel reminded the committee to keep in mind that the Police Chief and Police Sergeant positions took half of the suggested salary increase that was proposed for FY14, to consider that the Executive Secretary’s job has expanded to include handling all town insurance policies and to consider adding $1,000 to the Director of Operations salary in addition to any other increases to acknowledge the Road Scholar achievement by Maynard.
  • Chris and Fiona will join this subcommittee
  • Attorney Phil Collins provided further information on the town meeting setting contribution rates issue and case his law firm is currently involved in with the Town of Middleborough and the Massachusetts Teachers Association.  They are hoping to have a decision on this in early spring.  He is also working on a continuity proposal for the Town to look at and consider which would limit retiree health insurance coverage to employees that were on the town’s plan as of the date of retirement and to limit coverage to the type of plan at that time.
  • Copies of the 2 highway contracts we have will be distributed to the committee for further review.
  • The Committee reviewed new guidelines accepted by the Select Board with regard to work performed outside of regular meetings.  Henceforth, committee members who qualify will be eligible for a tax abatement through the Senior Work-Off Tax Abatement Program for activities/responisiblites which have been approved by the Committee Chair and Select Board.
  • Mickey suggested that in the future the Committee should reconsider instituting employee evaluations.  Muriel reiterated that the reason the Select Board and ECAC decided not to go this route as employee evaluations must be performed in an open meeting.  The Board has instead opted to keep their lines of communication between the Board and the Department Heads open for both praise and criticism.  Mickey and Larry were concerned that if there weren’t records on file of performance issues, letting someone go could cause problems.  Maynard reminded everyone that it’s required to be public because we have a Select Board form of Government instead of a Town Manager form of Government which would allow for closed door evaluations.  Muriel will send this issue to Attorney Collins to weigh in on.
  • The Committee will meet next on Thursday, November 7th at 4pm.
Adjourned: 5:05pm

Submitted by:
Melissa Noe, Executive Secretary
Via audio recording