The Martin Chronicles watched the video of the December 14 Villa Hills Administration Committee meeting posted on You Tube. It provides another glimpse into the minds of Mayor Martin and his cronies. We suspect that Villa Hills Tea Party-types and other government-haters will consider the move Martin is about to make is a wonderful thing. We don’t agree.
Almost from the moment Martin joined city council in 2005, he pushed to have employees pay a portion of their health insurance. What Martin never seemed to be able to understand is the fact that health care cost increases were already being controlled by significant increases in employee deductibles and co-pays each year. So, in effect, the rising cost of health insurance was already being shifted to the employees. Just not in the form of a payroll deduction.
Council listened to Martin’s ideas and asked him to develop a comparison of the Villa Hills employee compensation package to those in similar sized cities in Northern Kentucky. Martin agreed to do so. But he failed to produce one for two embarrassing years. Each time he was asked he simply said he believed “the associates” (Martin’s term for employees) should pay just like people in the private sector do. Quite compelling.
Flash forward to the December 14 Administration meeting. Committee chairman Jim Noll is now asking that the employees have $100 a month deducted from their pay for health insurance. Noll said he did a comparison to other cities. When an employee asked for a copy of the comparison to share with co-workers, Noll got highly agitated and refused to produce his study. The truth is no work was done to justify Noll’s proposal. Noll is simply following Martin’s marching orders.
Then, Noll fell back on Martin’s rationale that he and his wife work in the private sector and can’t get a plan like the Villa Hills’ employees have. The Martin Chronicles isn’t exactly sure what point Noll was trying to make, but he looked terrible on You Tube trying to make it. Two Administration Committee members expressed concern that the insurance rates were not bid out and no effort had been made to communicate the proposed changes to the employees. Noll had no defense. It doesn’t matter. He is simply doing Martin’s bidding.
Noll also shrugged and said this change would only impact “eleven people”. Well, those eleven and all their family members. Again, we know Tea Partiers and other government-haters won’t care, but the $100 monthly deduction means a whole lot more to the employees and their families than it does to a city operating without a legitimate current year budget.
The good employees may very well leave. Given Martin’s failure to find a seventh police officer, can any good replacements be found? Then what happens?
The Administration Committee deadlocked in a 2-2 vote on whether or not to recommend the $100 monthly deduction to the rest of council. That really doesn’t matter. Because it’s Martin’s decision. The Martin Chronicles is convinced that, after all these years, Martin will finally get his way. The great thing for him is he won’t have to justify it this time. He is the “CEO”. It’s his decision. We’re moving on. Get over it. West Crescent Springs does have a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?
