Posted on 10/07/2008 9:22:53 AM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
WATERLOO — Despite an impassioned plea from former village trustee Richard Schreck, the Village Board voted Monday to stop paying health insurance premiums for him and three other former elected officials with 10 or more years service.
The payments will stop as of Jan. 1.
By a 4-1 vote, the board voted to overturn a 1973 board motion that provided health insurance for life for elected officials who leave with at least 10 years of service.
A village board in 1986 voted to stop the practice from that point on.
The move affects Schreck; former trustees Steven Craig and Thomas “Shorty” Finnerty; and former trustee and mayor Kenneth “Lee” Patchen, who also attended the meeting.
Mayor Theodore Young, who defeated Patchen to become mayor in 2007, acknowledged the change was his idea.
“I’m not in favor of this,” Trustee Victor French said. “It penalizes the wrong person.”
French offered an amendment that would take insurance coverage away from all current and future elected officials, too. There was no second to the motion.
French was the only one to vote against the motion affecting the four former employees. In favor were Young and Trustees David Duprey, Joshua Mull and Bonnie Hosford.
Later, Patchen said he felt the move was made because of a grudge against Finnerty, who angered Young last year by supporting James Mooney, the incumbent Republican town supervisor.
Young is Seneca County Democratic Party chairman. Finnerty, who lost his Town Board re-election bid last year, is also a Democrat.
Reached this morning, Finnerty said the move was “directed at me and the only way to get at me was to take the whole group down.’’
He said he will consult an attorney about a legal challenge to the move.
yet another reason to oppose government controlled health care...
When will they be scheduling to have French thrown under the bus, as well.
It's time for the Republicans to do something serious. Why would any plan include me - as an early stage cancer survivor (Cancer FREE) if I had to go out on the open market and buy it? If the Republicans don't get hold of this issue, the democrats are going to run with it. There's too many true horror stories out there, and with more people losing their jobs, they will be reminded just how vulnerable they are.
Perhaps, but I can’t believe that service of 10 years ANYWHERE should give you health insurance paid by someone else for life.
Government healthcare is a nice, sweet idea but impractical and socialistic in nature. It has never worked in any country it’s been tried in.
BINGO!
A government that GIVES YOU health care, can vote to TAKE IT AWAY from you
With a population of 5,000 why would anyone in an elected position expect any benefits?
Yep. As the article implies, if the Mayor was interested in cutting costs he wouldn’t have waited to do this until after the guy getting the insurance criticized him.
On the one hand, based on precendent and present settled law, there is no way they can make that move stick. A contract is a contract.
The board can only modify future contracts, not past ones.
On the other hand, if they are successful, I can see a lot of deadwood having to go back to work, or severely cutting back on their lifestyle all across the country. We can dream, I suppose.
I never had a lot of respect for legislators setting their own salaries and benefits. Did I mention that?
That sounds reasonable to me.
One year’s worth of health insurance premiums is more than the entire 4 year salary+benefits package given to mayors in most NJ towns, even towns several multiples larger than this small NY village of about 5100 residents.
The village residents are paying approx~ a dollar a month in perpetuity for each of these health insurance policies. That is obscene.
It would be cheaper for the village to disband it’s charter and contract out it’s essential services to the nearby towns, county, and/or state.
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