By Bill Manger
At our November 9 meeting, the Southampton Village Board of Trustees considered three issues relating to their service: benefits, term length and compensation. We would like to explain our thoughts and actions on those issues for those unable to attend.
For many years until now, village trustees and mayors received full health insurance benefits for themselves and their families at no cost to them during their terms. They and their families continued to receive the same benefits for life, at no cost to them, when they left village service and attained the age of 55, provided they had served for five years. This lifetime benefit was provided regardless of their age when leaving office or their future employment.
Your board voted to change this expensive and overly generous policy. Going forward, elected officials must pay into the cost of their coverage, up to a maximum of 5 percent of salary while in office — the same standard that applies to all village department heads. Upon leaving village service, officials will only get benefits if they are age 62 or over and have served 10 years. They will be required to pay 30 percent of the benefit’s cost. Upon attaining age 65, the primary coverage becomes Medicare, and the village will only provide less costly supplemental insurance.
As a result of the board’s action, the village will realize substantial financial benefits in both yearly cost savings and the reduction of long-term liabilities on the village’s financial statements.
While prior administrations have discussed the subject of health care benefits for the trustees, only the current board, working in a cooperative manner and putting the public interest first, was ever able to implement changes to reduce the costs and associated liability attributable to those benefits.
Having elections every year is expensive — requiring the rental of voting machines and many hours of village employee time — estimated at about $20,000. After studying this issue last year, our Village Planning Commission recommended that if the elected officials’ terms were changed to four years, elections would only be needed every other year. In addition to the financial savings, they proposed that longer terms would lead to greater governance efficiency.
However, the public comments received on this issue were overwhelmingly opposed. The board has heeded the public’s concern and will not, at this time, continue pursuing four-year terms and elections every two years.
Lastly, village officials have not had salary increases since 2007, when the compensation was set at $15,000 for trustees and $25,000 for the mayor. All other village employees have received increases in compensation during the past 16 years.
The Village Board works diligently and puts in a great deal of time to manage the operations, finances, administration and services of the village government. Therefore, the board voted to increase salaries to compensate for increases in the cost of living since 2007, by a value that equates to less than 2 percent a year, resulting in new salaries of $20,500 for trustees and $35,000 for the mayor. In comparison, this is a significantly lower percentage and actual dollar increase than when compensation was last modified in 2007.
Our actions on November 9 were done in the spirit of fairness and transparency after much study and input from independent consultants. We modified an overly generous and expensive health insurance policy for elected officials; we voted to provide a modest, but fair, increase in compensation; and we listened to the opinions of our citizens with respect to the length of terms of office and made no change.
As always, we stand committed to provide all village residents with civil, efficient and effective government.
Bill Manger is mayor of the Village of Southampton. He wrote this Viewpoint on behalf of the other members of the Village Board.
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