It’s likely that former Iola City Administrator Judy Brigham will not receive tens of thousands of dollars in severence and retirement benefits after she was fired by the city this week.
Brigham told the Register Thursday that she was informed her termination came “with cause,” which means she would not collect a portion of her unused sick leave and would not be able to stay enrolled in the city’s health insurance program.
The pay loss also will likely affect Brigham’s pension through the Kansas Public Employee Retirement System, she said. She was unsure how much.
Brigham had previously estimated the difference could be worth $40,000 in lost benefits.
City Council members voted 6-1 Tuesday for Brigham’s immediate termination with the city, less than three weeks before she was to retire after 32 years as an Iola employee. No official reason was given, although one of the council members, Jim Kilby, confirmed that the city’s 2012 budget planning was a catalyst behind the move.
“They never gave me a reason,” Brigham said. “They still haven’t.”
She noted that the termination order did not include “with cause,” which led her to wonder whether she was let go without cause. If so, the chance remained that she could have collected on her unused sick leave, of which she had accumulated more than 900 hours and would have recouped half, a value estimated at about $18,000.
Brigham noted that she also would not be paid the final 13 days of her contract, which would have an adverse effect on her final quarterly earnings. Quarterly earnings are used by KPERS to determine a member’s pension.
“It’s going to be significant,” she said. “I’m not sure the council realized this when they ordered the termination.
“This is real personal for me,” she said. “To work for 32 years and plan for my retirement, and for them to take it away at the last minute like they did… I’m just sick. I didn’t anticipate this.”
Brigham said she was unsure how she will respond. She can file a grievance with the city, “or maybe it’s time I invest in an attorney.”
COUNCIL members at their Aug. 22 meeting rejected a proposed budget for 2012, citing in part a number of inaccurate figures on worksheets the city used to determine spending trends for the city departments and other funds.
The budget was approved Tuesday after new City Administrator Carl Slaugh, Assistant City Administrator Corey Schinstock and City Clerk Roxanne Hutton essentially discarded the worksheets and instead used the city’s new INCODE software program that more closely tied the budget worksheets with actual fund balances and checking accounts. The old budget worksheets were drafted independent of the budget information that is submitted to the state and undergoes auditors’ inspections.
The city’s $28 million spending plan council members approved Tuesday wound up being virtually identical to what they had rejected eight days earlier, the only difference being a reduction of about $14,000 from what the city will pay a Washington, D.C., lobbying firm, previously set at $60,000.
AN ARTICLE in Thursday’s Register detailing one fund balance in particular — the city’s electric fund — warrants clarification.
The article reported that council members were told about an equipment reserve fund purportedly for the eventual replacement of the city’s Wartsila generators.
The goal has been to set aside about $1 million annually since 2008 for new generators, estimated at about $10 million, or maybe more.
The Register reported that fund did not exist, which is true, but that’s because the fund does not need to exist, Brigham contended.
To illustrate, Brigham compared the city’s electric reserve fund like a personal checking account. Much like a person is not required to have a separate fund within his checking account solely for car payments, the city is not required to have a fund within its electric reserve solely for equipment replacement, she said.
The entire fund is simply unecumbered cash, City Clerk Hutton said.
In this case, the worksheets serve as reminders, Brigham said, that the city will need to prepare for the eventual replacement of the generators to prevent city planners from using the reserves for other means. It should also be noted that a portion of the reserves has been used annually to supplement Iola’s general fund in order to keep property taxes low.
City Council member Kendall Callahan said Brigham’s explanation, however, “absolutely” was misleading and that Council members were led to believe that funds were set aside for the generators.
The worksheet presented to former city commissioners when they set the 2011 budget assumed a reserve fund balance of $3 million for the Wartsila generators at the end of 2010. The city had in all of its electric reserves $3,010,926.23. (That was after about $1 million was transferred to the general fund.)
The goal, according to the worksheets presented to city councilmen in July, assumes the reserve for the generators will be at $4 million by year’s end, after transfers.
Hutton said the fund, as of Friday, had about $3,297,218 in unencumbered cash. Of that, about $600,000 will eventually be transferred to the general fund, while revenues will continue to come in as Iolans pay their utility bills.
Callahan did not speak about Brigham’s case, but did comment about the budget process.
“No matter who it was as city administrator, “ Callahan said, “with the evidence that we had and the explanations given” for some of the innacurate fund numbers, “I would vote to terminate an employee every single time.”
