RE: DB Commission responds to citizen comment

Dear Editor:

The City Commission does not routinely issue a formal public
response to citizen input made during Commission meetings. However,
there are times when such input is so outrageous that the
Commission has no choice but to respond.
At the Commission meeting on Tuesday, March 20, a former city
elected official made remarks that necessitate a formal response. We
will respond to the defamatory allegations, outright misinformation,
and flawed conclusions in the order they were presented.
Input 1
“At the Feb.21 meeting, the Commission made quite a fuss over
the retirement of Carl Peter. The truth is, he should have retired
three years ago. When Larry Deetjen brought Carl from Michigan,
it was with the understanding that Carl would retire after five
years at age 62. Deetjen wasn’t here when Carl reached 62. I called
the agreement to the attention of the powers that be, and was told
that since the agreement was not in writing, it held no water…How
come Burgess Hanson, who was Deetjen’s assistant at the time,
didn’t know? Peter wanted to stay until he was 65 so the City could
continue paying his health insurance. Although his position and
duties were vastly diminished, during those last three years, his
salary was not. Whatever happened to honor among thieves?”
RESPONSE:
The recruitment and selection process for Carl Peter, P.E., was
spearheaded by a former City Human Resources Director and the
Assistant to the City Manager. There were candidates from Illinois,
Massachusetts, Florida, etc. An interview panel of department directors
and other high-level senior managers recommended Mr. Peter as
the best-qualified applicant for the position of Director of Public
Works and Environmental Services.
As to the allegation that Mr. Peter was to retire at age 62, there is
simply no evidence of any such agreement either orally or in writing.
Mr. Peter recalled no conversation about an expected retirement date,
much less an oral or written agreement. Neither does current City
Manager Burgess Hanson, who assisted in the competitive recruitment
and selection process.
Mr. Peter’s duties changed considerably throughout his service to
the City, but they did not decrease until he helped orchestrate the
disestablishment of the Public Works Department as part of the 2011-
12 budget. Mr. Peter’s retirement was a known and expected result of
this organizational change. Mr. Peter served the City as a dedicated
public servant, and does not deserve to be impugned by baseless and
unsupported allegations.
Input 2
“The City lost the mediation over the firing of 106 City employees
without regard to the rules and regulations as outlined in the
employee’s handbook. Now the City has to rehire and pay back.
Instead of being terminated, the employee responsible for this
financial debacle was given a $40,000 raise in salary?”
RESPONSE:
Mike Milanowski, the City’s current Director of Human Resources,
had been onboard only two weeks when he reviewed and analyzed the
City’s plans for conducting the 2010 layoffs of 80 part-time and 26
full-time City employees. Mr. Milanowski then closely monitored the
effectuation of those layoffs.
The arbitration brought by the International Union of Painters and
Allied Trades (IUPAT) concluded with an arbitrator’s decision and
award that upheld the City’s reasoning for the layoffs, upheld the
layoff of the 80 part-time employees in their entirety, and upheld the
layoff of 25 of the 26 full-time employees who were laid off.
Rather than continue the arbitration process and incur considerable
additional costs to defend the belief that the City had followed all
applicable rules in the layoff of the single employee identified by the
arbitrator, City Management opted to return that employee without
further objection.
Input 3
“$40,000 increases in salary seem to be the favorite number.
Keven Klopp was hired by Mahaney, as CRA Director, with a
salary of $80,000. He got an increase of $40,000 when he became
the Assistant City Manager. As CRA Director, he also has an
Assistant CRA Director, and a Project Manager. And yet other
CRA Directors will tell you that it is unethical to take any job with
the same municipality that you serve as the CRA Director?”
RESPONSE:
Mr. Klopp was not given a $40,000 increase for assuming the duties
of Assistant City Manager. He was hired as the City’s CRA Director/
Economic Development Manager with a salary of $86,000, and
received an increase of $14,499 upon accepting the position of Acting
Assistant City Manager. When the position transitioned to a permanent
status, he received a final competitive salary of $120,000. His
salary in a tri-capacity position is lower than the salaries of many
single-capacity Assistant City Managers in similarly-sized cities in
South Florida and is $52,000 lower than the salary of the previous
Assistant City Manager under the former City Manager.
The accusation that Mr. Klopp engaged in unethical and unprofessional
behavior in accepting this role is absurd, and is a biased and
pathetic effort to defame both Mr. Klopp and the City. Multi-capacity
positions are a common practice among local governments. The City
Attorney and external auditors have carefully scrutinized Mr. Klopp’s
position, and have found no legal, professional or ethical basis on
which to discontinue a practice that benefits the city.
Input 4
“In the 13 years that I served as Mayor, I had four City
Managers, none of whom had an assistant. Although our population
was smaller, we had our own police and fire departments
most of the time. Now, 50 percent of our budget is handled by BSO.
So why do we have a Manager, an Assistant City Manager, an
Assistant to the City Manager, an Executive Assistant to the City
Manager, and an Administrative Support Specialist?”
RESPONSE:
In the 1980s, when this resident served as Mayor, the City’s
population was less than half of what it is today. Today, local
government operations have become exponentially much more complicated.
Regardless of whether the services are provided internally or
by the Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO), the City Manager is still
responsible for overseeing the law enforcement and fire-rescue service
operations for a city of 76,000 residents. The staff of the City
Manager’s office is also essential to ensuring that all aspects of city
operations run smoothly.
During this City Manager’s tenure, several department directors
and other senior-level managers either retired or left City service.
Those positions were filled at much lower salaries, amounting to a
savings in excess of $240,000 per year. One position has been
eliminated entirely in the City Manager’s office.
In addition, all City employees whose pay exceeded the maximum
of their salary grade were reduced back to the appropriate salary range.
In at least one instance, this resulted in a Department Director’s pay
being reduced by more than $16,000. Non-unionized City employees
have not received merit or cost-of-living increases since 2008.
Input 5
“According to an article [which ran in a local newspaper] (not
the Observer), the City wants to squeeze some money from the City
employees since the City did not get all of the $1.2 million they
originally budgeted, and they plan to hire an attorney to sue the
employees. Why?”
RESPONSE:
The City Budget for Fiscal Year 2011-12 was predicated on the fact
that the pay of all City employees would be reduced by 5 percent and
that every City employee would be required to pay 10 percent of the
cost of his/her individual health insurance coverage. Without these
economic concessions, the City would not have been able to reduce the
millage rate by the 1 mill it was reduced, effective Oct. 1, 2011.
However, because of collective bargaining that was deliberately
stalled by the 29 employees represented by a newly formed union of
mid-level managers and supervisors, and due to the disavowal of an
affirmative ratification vote on a labor agreement, the above-detailed
economic concessions could not be implemented on Oct. 1, 2011.
The article to which this resident referred was an inaccurate and
incomplete report on a hearing before a Special Magistrate, who was
appointed to provide his recommendations regarding the impasse in
collective bargaining between the union and the City. There is no truth
to the assertion that the City plans to hire an attorney to sue the
employees represented by this union.
Input 6
“We were told that the main reason for the merger with BSO was
so the City could get out of the pension business. Yet, over a hundred
of the firefighters chose to stay in the City’s defined pension plan.
The City will eventually be out of the pension business, but it might
take 60 or 70 years to do it. And just why did the merger with BSO
have to take place so fast and without public input?”
RESPONSE:
There were a number of important reasons for the transition of fire/
rescue services to the Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO). Interestingly
enough, this resident was actually very supportive of the merger until
the IAFF Union President, a close family friend, was removed by the
Union.
While not the only reason, the closure of the Deerfield Beach
Firefighters’ Pension Plan was one of the main reasons in support of
the transition to BSO. Nearly half of the Fire-Rescue Department’s
workforce had the potential to retire within the next five years. If the
plan had remained open, all of the personnel hired to replace the
retiring employees would have been in the City Firefighters’ Pension
Plan, meaning that the City would have to continue funding the
Pension Plan much further into the future than the time it will now take
for the Pension Plan to expire.
The City was advised both by our labor counsel and by attorneys
specializing in public-sector pension plans to close the Pension Plan
as soon as possible, thereby limiting entry by new employees into the
Pension Plan.
Florida law requires that existing employees in the Pension Plan
(even after their transition to the BSO) be allowed to remain in the
City’s Pension Plan until their retirement. The very best the City could
do in controlling the cost of the Firefighters’ Pension Plan was to close
the Pension Plan to new employees, benefit from the favorable
actuarial assumptions that would apply to a “closed” vs. “open”
Pension Plan and, in the course of time, eventually have the Pension
Plan expire.
The resident alleges that the transition to the BSO was to save more
than $2 million. A more accurate account of savings would be close
to $1.5 million in the first year of the contract. While not actually
reflected in the City’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2011-12, the cash
savings were earmarked by a consensus of the City Commission to be
used either to replenish the City’s Fund Balance or hire more BSO
deputies.
Still another $1.5 million in cost avoidance was produced by the
transition to BSO in fully staffing one existing fire station, opening a
new fire station along South Powerline Road, and avoiding the
purchase of telecommunications equipment that was over 25 years old
in the City’s former Dispatch Communications Center.
Conclusion
We trust that the information and responses to this resident’s input
will provide a much more accurate and true understanding of the
professionalism, responsiveness, efficiency and effectiveness with
which the City is run by the Deerfield Beach City Commission and City
Management.
Deerfield Beach City Commission