Jamie Munks
The State Journal-Register
Questions over a proposed ordinance authorizing $3.5 million to cover health care-related expenses for the city of Springfield prompted a heated exchange between aldermen Tuesday night.
A one-sentence explanation of the proposed ordinance, indicating that the supplemental funding is needed because of an increase in the amount and number of medical claims in the last quarter of fiscal 2015, prompted Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin to call the explanation “inadequate.”
“We get one sentence to explain a $3.5 million budget problem,” McMenamin said. “… We need some help. We need to know why we’re so off.”
Ward 10 Ald. Jim McDonough said the information wasn’t new – that it was a message city Budget Director Bill McCarty delivered to aldermen a few weeks ago, and that McMenamin was pontificating.
“I think you were here, Ald. McMenamin,” McDonough said. “I think you heard what we all heard.” McDonough is serving out the remaining months of former Ald. Tim Griffin’s term in Ward 10.
“You’ve been here a couple of months and you’re going to accuse an alderman of pontificating?” McMenamin shot back.
After Tuesday’s committee of the whole meeting, McMenamin called McDonough’s statement “a slam,” charging that it was a political move from someone “who’s not going to have to work with us” come spring when the new slate of city officials take office.
McDonough is not running; McMenamin is being challenged by Sarah Delano Pavlik and Michael Higgins in his re-election bid.
“I think it was calculated on his part to try to slam an alderman who’s in a contested race,” McMenamin said. “… I was just asking questions. That’s what we’re supposed to do.”
The majority of the $3.5 million supplemental funding request is due to increased medical expenses, and city officials hope it represents a worst-case scenario. Health-care regulation changes at the federal level have created challenges for local governments when it comes to budgeting for those expenses. Some aldermen said Tuesday that was something they were prepared for, and that it was to be expected that the federal changes would make cost predictions more difficult.
The original cost estimate was $26.7 million, an actuarial report in October raised the year-end estimate to $27.5 million, and there have been escalating costs since. Part of that cost comes out of the pockets of employees and retirees, Ward 1 Ald. Frank Edwards pointed out.
Joe McMenamin for Ward 7 