Trusting our elected officials is extremely hard to do under any circumstances these days, but usually you have a better feel and sense of reliance on your elected neighbors with whom you share the daily common experience of living in a small Southern town.
After the most recent Starkville board meeting, I am not sure how even that is possible.
Let me set the stage. It’s all about Lisa.
The agenda was longer than usual with things that mattered. Under normal circumstances those routine items would be placed on a consent agenda. But Alderman Wynn tormented her fellow board members and the citizens by not agreeing to a consent agenda muttering something about “transparency” when pressed hard about why by Alderman Carver.
Given the way the meeting went, it appeared she was enjoying flexing her political muscle.
One of the issues the board considered was the replay of the selection of the health insurance provider for the city. This issue has been a lingering controversy pretty much since the Plus One health care debacle back in January.
Ms. Wynn appears to be on a vendetta against the current healthcare agent because he provided the city with the Plus One coverage option, which the city requested.
The mayor vetoed the board order to change agents mid-year based on this ill will. His veto did not get overridden so the agent of record for healthcare was able to finish out the year.
To give the devil her due, it is perfectly appropriate to ask for proposals from agencies for services. We should have been doing it more regularly, but truth be told that particular service hadn’t been a priority. I’ll own that one.
The genesis of asking for proposals should be good government not retribution, but whatever the reason, here we are.
So this meeting was to finalize the proposals from agencies for health care for Starkville employees. The city staff were charged with assessing the proposals using set criteria. Essentially setting values to various elements of proposals submitted such as client communication and what services they could provide.
When the staff rated the agencies, Ms. Wynn’s preferred provider, The Integrity Group, wasn’t the winner. Danger! In fact, it wasn’t even the runner up. It came in tied for third in the grouping.
The difference in the cost from the top proposal to the third runner up was $149,468 in savings! The second runner up was within $22,081 which might even pay for board travel next year. Just as important is the sad fact that Ms. Wynn’s preferred provider would also cost the employees more money out of pocket for family coverage than the staff recommended provider.
Going back to the beginning of this term, Ms. Wynn has been speaking passionately about giving the city employees a raise. When her opportunity to save them money was presented what did she do? She opted to have the employees pay more out of their pockets for insurance for their families.
How can that be? How can any of the aldermen vote for spending an additional $149,000 of taxpayer money on health insurance? How do you tell your constituents you voted for them to pay more than they have to? How do you tell your employees you want them to pay more to insure their families than they have to?
The mayor explained to the board he was going to veto the board action if they chose to support Ms. Wynn’s motion. She withdrew her motion, and it looked like good fiscal sense had won the day.
But wait, galloping out of Ward 1 to save her bacon, Alderman Carver voted to support the more expensive Integrity Group proposal despite the mayor’s veto. Pass it did, on a 4 to 3 vote. I wonder if that is even legal?
We were well over 3 1/2 hours into the meeting. Everyone was getting tired and frustrated and Ms. Wynn made a Freudian slip calling the Integrity Group the “Infidelity Group.” While it was a slip of the tongue, it resonated with me why any true guardian of our tax dollars would vote for this.
Hard to believe the “Tea Party” who supported this conservative block of four (Wynn, Perkins, Vaughn and Carver) is still having any kind of party over their victory.
When the mayor issues his veto, “The Infidelity Group” will have to find at least one more vote or do the right thing and save the employees and the taxpayers a whole lot of money.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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