One meeting led to many after the Central Lincoln County Ambulance Service Board of Directors proposed a potential buyback program for employees funded by participating towns.
The board’s Monday, June 15 meeting continued the discussion from the week prior about buying back credible time of employees now that they have access to the Maine Public Employee Retirement System.
Back in March, special town meetings were held in the six towns that make up the service – Bremen, Bristol, Damariscotta, Newcastle, Nobleboro, and South Bristol – to update the organization’s interlocal agreement to allow ambulance service employees to join PERS.
In the June 8 meeting, the board discussed what level the service would pay toward buying back employee’s time into the retirement system. The proposal discussed was for the service to contribute 75% of the cost for prior service and to make these payments over 10 years.
The cost to purchase the creditable time back for eight listed employees would be just over $1,000,000, according to a document distributed at the meeting that The Lincoln County News obtained through a Maine Freedom of Access Act request. This document detailed that 92% of the total cost was attributed to four employees, with approximately half of the total going to one employee.
Some representatives on the board expressed discomfort about the quick pace the decision was being considered, especially since the money would eventually come from taxpayers. The board decided to give representatives more time to meet with their town officials and select boards to hopefully have an answer by Friday, June 12.
Representatives first discussed voting by email on that date, then shifted to considering the matter through a virtual meeting. Eventually, they settled on an in-person meeting on Monday, June 15.
Chair Joe Rose, of Bristol, said the board’s adherence to the state’s open meeting laws is why the June 15 meeting was in person and not via Zoom or remotely. In addition, it had become apparent some towns would like more information on the retirement view of the buyback issue.
“It’s more important to get everybody educated on what this is all about, and what the numbers are, and everybody’s comfortable with the decisions,” Rose said.
The board voted to repeal the votes cast for the 75% at the last meeting. Members then voted 5-1 in favor of investigating an actuary and any other professional counsel to gather information for the board to go forward with the buyback conversation. Nobleboro’s representative Michael Ward cast the dissenting vote.
At a special meeting on Thursday, June 11, the Nobleboro Select Board voted to say “no” to the 75% discussed on June 8.
“Our taxpayers were not given the opportunity to weigh in on that, and my vote would be zero based on that,” Ward said at the June 11 meeting.
The suggestion to hire an actuary came halfway through the meeting from Damariscotta resident Julie Keizer, who said it would be good to have a professional look into the situation to determine the costs.
Keizer, who also has decades of experience in municipal government and happens to be the Waldoboro town manager, also said the board should not talk specify which employees the situation involves.
“You have to protect your employees, and discussing names is not protecting your employees,” she said.
She also said the board is putting Service Chief Nick Bryant in “a very bad position” by having him gather all of the information.
“It might behoove you all, and if I were sitting in Nick’s shoes, what I would be telling you to do, and what I would hope you would do is say ‘Let’s spend a little money on an actuary, and let’s figure out what, if there is a matter of fairness, let’s figure out what that number is,” Keizer said.
The ambulance board will meet again once it gets advice from the actuary, as well as the payroll company to address questions about the retirement view of the buyback proposal. It was mentioned that interest on the total for buyback is 6.5% monthly.
Rose said the board would rather be clear with what is going on over rushing a decision.
He also mentioned Bristol Town Administrator Rachel Bizarro offered for the ambulance service board members to take the Maine Municipal Association training. Other town officials in attendance from participating towns also chimed in with advice on how the board could adhere to meeting rules better.
“We’re trying to figure out how to do this appropriately moving forward, so bear with us,” Rose said.
