Brentwood aldermen Monday evening discussed, but didn’t pass, the city’s 2016 budget. Three aldermen agreed with Mayor Chris Thornton that their job was to consider the budget only and leave the details to the city staff. Four aldermen disagreed, voting it down.
Alderman Steve Lochmoeller was one who got into the budget details. He asked City Administrator Bola Akande about an increase in personnel services from 13 to 44 percent. “We’ve had to shrink our capital spending to accommodate that personnel,” he said.
“I don’t believe that’s accurate,” Akande said. “We didn’t shrink the capital budget. We didn’t have an expense… Just to make a broad statement that we shrunk capital doesn’t really reflect what’s taking place.”
Alderman Andy Leahy wanted to amend the budget to move $500,000 from capital reserves into the budget to be used for street repair, but Thornton denied it the motion.
Thornton became clearly frustrated when the discussion turned to $362,000 in the budget marked for pay increases, and how it was determined.
“I’ve never seen a board of anything get as involved in these sorts of discussions as I’m hearing this evening,” he said. “I would submit it’s not the board’s job, it’s the city administrator’s job to implement the budget,” he said.
“For this board to delve into the specifics, I mean… it’s seriously ludicrous,” Thornton said. “If you don’t agree that $362,000 should be in the budget for increases, then fine, say so, and make an amendment to change it to whatever you think it should be. But the board should not be getting involved in what pay increases any individual employee is going to get.”
Alderman David Plufka agreed with Thornton. “I don’t believe we were elected to serve the city to get down into this kind of minutia. Our job is to set policy, to give the staff direction. We have to let them do their job.”
Toohey said there’s a good process in place. He said auditors will do payroll testing to ensure raises are tied to the step plan.
Alderman Maureen Saunders disagreed. “Several of the aldermen are confused. Maybe not you (Toohey). As to what we agreed to pay — it’s the greater of market median and Brentwood’s max, not market max average, which is what is written in the Higbee report.”
Leahy also said it is the board’s job to go into the “Nth degree”. “If we don’t do it then you might as well have all 8,000 residents come up here and do it.”
Aldermen David Plufka, Keith Slusser and Patrick Toohey voted yes. Aldermen Andy Leahy, Steve Lochmoeller, Cindy Manestar and Maureen Saunders voted no.
The discussion is on the Brentwood city YouTube beginning at around 30:30 into the video. This report is based on the video.
If your going to use someone’s last name try to spell it correctly, it’s seemayer, and he paid back every penny he took from the city, yea he made a big mistake and is now paying for it, leave him alone now, thank you!
My last name gets scrambled all the time and I take no offense and he should not either. Chris Seemayer may have paid the money back but what about the lost trust and reputation of our community leaders past and present along with our city staff who are constantly being questioned to this day 5 years later because of his acts of decit and stealing to me he should feel lucky he is not in prison.
He does feel lucky and very remorseful, thank you for your concern
You hold a grudge. Chris Seemayer just had a little gambling problem.
Oops, this reply was meant for John. Sorry bout that Disgusted.
Alderperson Toohey, just because two CPA’s voted on a budget does not make it the right thing to do. Budgets in the real world are put together constantly by business owners and managers who have no CPA certificates and the last thing any of them do is turn it in without understanding it. In the real world that gets you fired. If someone does not understand the step program, then I would hope they would vote no until they completely understand what they are voting for within the budget. We already had “we need to pass it to see what is in it”.
Again, let me state, being a CPA does not make you smart about budgets, just allows you to add three letters after your name.
You are right, being a CPA doesn’t make you smart about a budget, but it does mean you do possess some accounting knowledge, more than the average person. This should be seen as a commodity and not a determent.
The rest of the board does not appear to possess the mental facilities to understand a budget. They were given the budget 2 months ago, if that is not long enough to understand the document, then maybe you should resign your seat on the board. 2 months is a not a rushed process, it is a normal time frame.
They are all adults, they should stand up and tell the people they do not understand the budget and ask for help. (Maybe go to the CPAs on the board that do understand it, just a thought) But instead they vote NO, because they are too embarrassed to tell the world they need help. So they seem to be fighting for the betterment of Brentwood, when in reality they don’t understand the budget and are making up whatever they can to not show their ignorance.
Another mind reader heard from. So, “truth”, you know exactly why these people voted the way they did. You’ve seen their IQ scores? One of them told you this? Sorry, “truth”, you’re projecting. Violently. Or maybe you’re just squirting ink to cover up the fact that you’ve got a financial interest in the status quo. Yeah, you sound like a carpetbagger. See how easy that is “truth”? I can slime your motives just as easily as you do it to others. Wonder which one of us is closer to the truth.
Hey rickinstl, just in case other readers are interested. Do you buy the Saunders Kool-aid at a local store or is it special order? I’m sure people might be interested in it, as it makes you delusional and fills you with all sorts of things that are not based in reality.
Glad we finally got to what’s really causing your rage. You really, really hate Saunders. I don’t live in her ward, have never met her, and doubt I could pick her out of a lineup. Looking at past performance of our city govt. and concluding that the facts show a huge lack of oversight and a go-along, get-along attitude which cost us a ton of money hardly signifies delusion. And pointing out the gaping holes in your argument seems to be completely in line with the reality of the situation. You smear anyone who questions the plans and spending of the traditional power structure. Whether that’s coming from your personal financial interest or you just need someone to take your personal issues out on is a question I can’t answer. But it would be interesting to know the where this comes from.
Dear ignorant truth. Budgets aren’t debated until they hit the floor for debate, duh. Dog and pony shows in committees are meaningless. So go back and do your math. How long was the budget on the floor, before being debated and then voted down. Idiot. Bringing the budget to the floor only days before required passage is calculated behavior. The vote against apparently did not buy into that clearly attempted manipulation.
Boy oh boy Parkside Ploy, someones got their panties in a bunch.
I am surprised your 1st grade education has given you the intelligence to form complete sentences.
First try to learn a little bit about the process before you complain about it. The budget process was laid out back in August or September and NO ONE complained back then. So it is all too convenient to blame the process now.
Secondly, go back and watch the meetings. The budget was supposed to be debated at the first meeting in December, but the board decided to move the debate to the last meeting in December knowing that was the last chance to pass it. This is how the budget has ALWAYS been done. The board decided to move the debate back. There was nothing nefarious going on. Just a bunch of grandstanding and the fact that some of you fall for this stuff is amazing.
I am now dumber for reading your post. Thank you for that.
Mr. Nuerenberger – all of this started under the unwatchful eye of Mayor Kelly and then you have a city administrator who was stealing from the people. If you would watch a couple meeting back the head of the library mentioned when the prior administrator was there the city workers looked like part-times. Bola has apparently fixed that situation, maybe the people leaving don’t like the idea of working hard.
To blame any of this on alderpersons who have very little contact with the day to day city employees is ludicrous and if you are going to make that claim, please, someone, back it up with a fact or two. We keep reading this from folks like you John, yet no one yet has shown a shred of proof.
Our city is dysfunctional still and it all starts and stops at the very top where we have mistakenly elected another Mayor who thinks he is the only one who should be in charge. The other on-going concern is that the money belongs to the people of Brentwood, and again this Mayor as in the past looks at it as his own little piggy bank to play with and buy the “love” of the employees.
$362,000, if it is just sitting around send a check to every household in Brentwood for $100, make the citizens happy instead of us getting the short end while employees earn higher wages and have significantly better benefits that most citizens.
Jim I would say that passing a compensations plan to control spending on staff is proof restraint when it comes to hiring staff and future raises but pentalizing current staff when requested and approved by the budget committee. I think the fact that our real estate taxes or some of the lowest in the area plus the amout of services we receive continue to be some of the best and have to best of my knowledge have never been cut say alot. My thought was instead of giving money back me I would rather spend $100 on raises. It appears that you have attended some of BOA meetings as I have so to me if you were watching you would see the inapproprite demeanor many of the alderman have toward staff you would know who I am talking about and would not be neceessary to cite examples.
Mr. Nurtenberge, I’ve been a resident of the city for 35+ years, and believe your take way, way off track. Alderman Leahy continuously gets re-elected time after time, for one reason. The residents appreciate him being our watchdog. He is effective and on point over 90% of the time. Most of us are tired of the freight train of cash and perks that have been lavished for years. His questions and analyses are fine. If you don’t have time for them, perhaps you should study democracy. I see you are an appointed position. I’ll leave it at that. Beyond your four tent poles lies the rest of America, with differing points of view far in excess of the tiny dramas of Brentwood. Budget discussions are tense everywhere. As they should be.
When money is involved, we want our representatives scrutinizing every penny. $360k to me is far from a drop in the bucket. At my company, all dollars are serious.
Stephen If Andy Leahy was such a watchdog how did the Semeyer and Fire Department overtime incidents happen on his watch. What else did he miss as we had the State Audit come back in 2011 deplorable on his watch, where was he? I also think he was one of alderman collecting benefits (not sure if he still does) that was the subject of many meeting heated exchanges with Alderman Saunders questioning on that approval process when she was newly elected. I do not apologize for being active in my community, getting to know staff, Aldermen and the Mayor and attending meetings to help better my community. I wish more people whould do what I have done get involved.
Mr. Nuertenberge, I think that your last line doesn’t say it all: “…what I have done to (try and stay appointed on the Mayor’s committee)”. In the real world, slamming watchdog’s for being fooled when, from what I’ve read, a host of other very intelligent watchdogs, including city auditors, and I think the city treasurer, city attorney, bookkeepers, accountants and other employees were fooled as well, is a fool’s game. I visit this website to learn the new things about my community, and those around. I happen to like it very much, since my newspaper no longer covers much anymore. Whoever the next mayor is, I hope will think twice about whether keeping residents on committees who go here to post streaming negativity about their own city is good practice. I saw you on here squabbling with residents about the Boys & Girls Hope home. As an appointed member, do you represent the city? Maybe there is a policy, and you choose to ignore it. There is one in my company, and you’d be fired.
Stephen I do get passionate about certain issues and being appointed to a position says to me that someone must want my opinions otherwise I would not have been approved by the BOA. You mention BHGH, which I was passionate about, but that is another example where Andy Leahy did not vote on what was good for our community and especially Ward 3. He voted against a $3,000.000 development that would have helped disadvanged kids get to college because of a few citizents with the not in my back yard philosopy and those two homes sit vacant to this day with no hope of being occupied. The other no votes from the BOA was just a postition against Mayor Kelly as he was for BHGH. There is no policy for a Brentwood citizen, appointed or not, about being vocal on a issue they feel strongly about. Protected under the First Amendment of the Untied States called freedom of speech & redress of grievances.
Mr. S, Alderman Leahy is re-elected time after time for one reason; nobody runs against him! He was elected in 2002 in a 9 vote landslide over Terry Noles and he has not run a contested race since. I applaud Alderman Leahy’s work ethic, he clearly prepares for meetings and pays close attention to the details. Unfortunately, it is equally clear that he does not understand much of what he reads. He does ask for help; for example, he recently asked the city attorney for an interpretation of a statute he had read, but when the city attorney explained the plain language of the statute, he and several other members of the Board with similar inability or unwillingness to understand voted to send the matter to the state attorney general for interpretation. https://youtu.be/qztNa3Qs50M?t=1630
This and many other incidents like it every year waste the time of the Board, staff and professionals hired to assist them. The residents of Ward 3 and Brentwood deserve better, however, we have no one but ourselves to blame if Alderman Leahy runs unopposed yet again this year.
Seemayer should just come back and adjust the chair in his old office, get another charge card and approve the budget.
You are clever!
What the board of Alderman did last week NOT PASSING the 2016 budget is completely ludicrous. If that does not say dysfunction I do not know what does. Alderman Leahy, Saunders, Lockmueller and Manstar voting against the budget was absurd and to me they did not even know what they were voting on. The compensation plan was already voted on and approved at the previous meeting. Our BOA have had over 3 to 4 months and multiple meetings going over the proposed budget and it was online for at least a month for all residents so as to be totally transparent but a certain faction that just want to be disruptive on camera. They, waited until the final vote on the budget was up to decide they did not like one or two issues on a 20 million budget as to appear they were champion for what is right. They had plenty of time in two weeks to make a clear motion to make the change to what they wanted vs. having the whole budget rejected. I was embarrassed by my 3rd ward alderman Leahy being on the board for 12 years did not even know how to make a proper motion that was clear and precise that everyone could understand. All our employees deserve more than a 3% increase to deal with some of our current alderman and the way they are treated off camera. By the way the employees were not asking for the raise it was the same as the board passed in the past years before our current mayor and new alderman were elected and Manestar, Leahy, Saunders and Kramer were on the board when it was passed with no issues. People do not want to work for a city that does not appreciate the staff as they are what make our city great. In the past several months our city has lost six of our administrators (Director of Planning and Zoning, Director of Finance, Human Resources Manager, City Inspector, Project Manager, and our Payroll Clerk). Two of these employees were offered a salary increase if they would stay and both refused, stating it wasn’t worth it. All of these employees left by their own choosing and I would assert that many of them left due to mistreatment by a few of our Aldermen and the dysfunction that is caused by them. Our city was recently voted one of the top ten places to live, but if a few of our Aldermen continue to run out our long term employees who got us to this standing we will not stay in this position for long. Take an hour or so and watch make your judgments where the problem lies or if one attended the meetings you could see for yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTYC0lDyAZQ
People would be shocked at the infighting and show-boating that takes place by a few of our elected officials. I think it would also be clear to everyone. We have four officials up for reelection in April and so far everyone running is running unopposed. Filings for candidacy due in mid-January.
I live in ward 3 and both my alderman Leahy (who is up for reelection) and Lochmuller did not ask for my opinion although I have attended the last several BOA meeting and I firmly disagree with their votes rejecting the budget. I definitely do not think it is the BOA’s job to get into every detail of running the city they are supposed to oversee and make policy. That is why we pay a city administrator to run the city on a day to day basis.
Try spell check if you are going to repeatedly post the exact same thing on multiple platforms. Your repeated grammatical and spelling errors really detract from your argument.
Sorry I did not mean to offend you (Grammar Police ie “Don”) but you get my point. Yes I have posted it on mutiple platforms Facebook and Nextdoor as that is what they are for to get the word out to others that attend meetings are watch videos ot know what is going on in our city. I am easy to find as I do not hide behind behind Anonymous posting that have nothing to add to the subject.
I think it is terrible to think that no one deserves a merit increase. It does not matter how little or much a person is paid. Everyone deserves to have a merit increase up to 3% if in good standing etc. As a nurse at an area ER I have witnessed what the Brentwood Firefighters do for our community and especially the residents. As an ER RN I will state that in comparison to a few surrounding community departments that I would not feel safe driving through those areas for fear of the lack of care to be provided. Our fire fighters and paramedics are very knowledgeable, professional as well as kind to their patients and to staff! There are VERY FEW fire departments with all of those characteristics.
To say that NO one deserves a raise is ridiculous! There are fast food workers who provide your lunch and/or dinner that want to be paid the same amount as the fire fighter/paramedic who may save your life while working a holiday, 48 hours away from their family and never complain about it because they enjoy their thankless job. This goes for any and all of our city workers! They have a thankless job that all of you just sit behind a computer and knit pick and complain about what they do or do not do. If you feel so compelled to think they are not deserving of a merit increase then you should apply for the open positions.
The City Admin.. should be administrating what the Board of Aldermen say that she/he should administrate. Thornton is correct. If the Aldermen want something to be one way or the other, then they should pass a law or an amendment to tell the Administrator what to do or how to do it.
The city should not put $500,000. in to anything from the general fund because they were COMPLAINING, before they were elected, that there was NOT enough money in that account.
PATRICK TOOHEY ….. Saying that 2 CPAs or ex-CPAs or is that 1 CPA and 1 ex-CPA, are smart about budgets, is like saying a person should buy a used car because 2 used car salesmen at a car lot, recommend a car. Seriously.
I don’t know who’s right and who’s wrong here. I just know I didn’t get a cost of living increase in my Social Security income for 2016.
Alderman Plufka, if $362,000 is just minutia to you, then you really should not have run for an office that has a financial duty to its citizens.
Jim
The pay increases only amounted to 0.0181% of the entire $20,000,000 budget. That would be the kind of minutia that David was referring I would guess. Plus a new compsation plan they passed goes into effect in 2016 which caps salaries and puts a step program in place.
April – you know who stays at their job with no raises, most of today’s workers. The average household has fallen behind in spending power by $5000 over the last five years. Not Brentwood workers, who constantly get raises.
Also, when have employees ever been the ones overseeing their own increase which is what the Mayor and our two CPA’s say should happen?
Lastly, isn’t part of the guidance the Alderpersons should participate in, the expenses and in this case raises?
Will we be alive when Brentwood starts running like a professional entity?
Yes, the two CPA’s voted for this budget, that should mean something to you.
Before voting on the budget the board elected to implement a step plan with SALARY CAPS. These caps will allow employee salaries to become more in line with their market peers over the long term. Where salaries stand today is a result of years of uncontrolled policies and cannot just be corrected in one budget cycle. It was a long term problem requiring a long term solution.
Additionally, this step plan determines employee raises, not the employees themselves. I don’t know where you came up with that theory. The City Administrator will implement the step plan and put people in it according to their correct step. The correct step is based on where their current salary is and the closest step on the step plan. This implementation will then be tested by our auditors during payroll testing of our yearly audit. The city administrator, under direction of the mayor, performs the task of implementation because it is an executive branch process. The boards role is legislative. The board sets the plan, the mayor and administrator execute it.
Furthermore, if you watch the video of the meeting you will see that some board members state they don’t understand the step plan. There is no way those same people should then be put in charge of executing it.
That is how a professional entity is run. As opposed to employees being entered onto a step based on how a couple of aldermen personally feel about the employees which would open the city of up law suits.
Wow April, I can hear that ax grinding from my house!
Never claimed I had all the answers, I just think that people with access to a large pile of money which belongs to OTHERS should be subject to the elected reps of the people. You can’t remember as far back as the Seemayer fiasco? Everyone liked and trusted him too, right?
Ok, now, tell us all which city dept. you work for. Anger like yours doesn’t come out of nowhere. You or someone close to you works for the city, and real supervision rankles, either financially, or just through your (their) sense of entitlement. Try to remember who works for who. The people paying the freight should be in charge.
Kudos to Rickinstl for unmasking “April” for who “she” really is — not a casual, objective resident but rather a City employee who displays in his writings a very impressive knowledge of City policies and politics posts very biased comments out of personal self interest. My guess is “April” is
Kudos to Rickinstl for unmasking “April” for who “she” really is — not some casual, objective Brentwood resident but rather a city employee who reveals in his posts an insider’s knowledge of city affairs and politics and whose comments are motivated by personal self interest. I doubt he even lives in Brentwood. That would explain his willingness to saddle Brentwood taxpayers with excessive city employee salaries.
He accuses certain aldermen of “micromanaging” city employees. Ha! Those of us who remember the news headlines of 2011 — “Seemayer Arrested for Stealing Thousands from City for Casino Gambling,” “No One Was Watching City Manager,” “Kelly Wouldn’t Fire Seemayer; Asks Judge for Leniency” — call it “stepping up to the plate and asserting needed oversight to protect taxpayers from further waste, fraud, and abuse.” The reason many of today’s aldermen are involving themselves in the details of the city’s budget is because we, their constituents, demanded it. Back in 2011, too many of the aldermen were asleep at the switch.
Thank you Maureen, Cindy, Andy, and Steve, for rejecting the Thornton-Akande Budget with its lavish worker salaries. And Tom, when you return, please do the right thing and reject it, too.
Brian It was not the Thornton-Akande Budget that is not how it works. It was a budget that was put forth and reccomended positively by the Ways and Means Committee which has Aldermans Sauders, Slusser, Toohey & Plufka. Of course with staff input first and the mayor and then also with all input from other 4 alderman and citizens that chose to be involved as they are all open meeting.
April – your quite simply an idiot making statements you cannot back up. To think Alderpersons who have little to no contact with city employees is why they left just shows you are clueless. People have asked repeatedly for proof that Alderpersons create time consuming tasks if any tasks at all for city employees and to date no proof has been offered.
Who is their immediate supervisor and start there not at a place or person that has not contact with them. Perhaps they want to work for a city that has some ethics at the highest level.
Since you two seem to have all the answers, maybe you should file to run for alderman. You’ve got a few more days. If you feel that isn’t the right path for you, perhaps you’d like to apply for one of the vacant positions which have recently opened:
-Human Resources Manager
-Finance Director
-Assistant City Administrator
-Public Works Project Manager
-Accounting Clerk
The professionals in the above positions all left the city due to aldermen (Saunders, Lahey, Kramer) micromanaging their every move. Who in their right mind would remain an employee under constant criticism and ridicule, with a frozen salary and an increased workload given to them by the above incompetent aldermen. The employees cannot focus on their actual job, because they are too busy waiting hand and foot on the self serving politicians. They voted down the budget because they didn’t agree with the results of the PROFESSIONAL which THEY hired to do an audit of the city’s compensation plan, which THEY requested. Brentwood was once a market leader and a desired place to work, but employees are leaving at a rapid pace, due to the actions of Aldermen Saunders, Lahey, Kramer, Manestar and it looks as if Lochmueller has joined in on the dysfunctional party. Until these self serving micro managers understand its not their job to oversee every single day to day activity within the city, employees will continue to leave and Brentwood will continue down the road of a city with a bad reputation. Let the professionals hired, do the job they’ve been hired to do.
Again, we ask for PROOF of this micro managing. Just because you say it happened, doesn’t make it so. We want proof.
Watch the videos of the aldermanic meeting and you can see on camera how staff is treated and made to feel there hard work in not appreciated are outright ignored as it does not fit into an aldermans agenda. If they do that on camera and in front of an audience it can be easily imagined what goes on behind closed doors without the cameras on.
If we did not elect them to watch our money then what did we elect them to do? Mayor Thorton is dead wrong, to leave it to an unelected official to determine where the money goes is what is ludicrous. Can’t believe that we elected this man to run our city when he makes statements that prove he is incompetent and feels there is no reason to listen to the citizens.
Amazing.
I guess then you want a elected full time mayor to run the city who could do the same thing seeymer did. That would be a mistake. If you are not going to give the city adminstrator the authority to run city with BOA oversight not having every decision being micro manged and questioned is not a way to conduct business.
Sounds like the same problem we have at other levels of government. The un-elected bureaucracy (here, the city administrator) does all the acting, while the elected reps can throw up their hands and say “we didn’t do it, we’re trying to be good managers of your money, but we don’t have the power”.
I could be wrong, but I think we should take a hard look at which direction this process goes. If the elected officials won’t take and hold control of spending, what are they doing there? God knows this has cost us dear in D.C., where the budget is totally out of control, and the permanent, un-elected bureaucrats essentially run the asylum. And I seem to recall that we had a slight problem with the last un-elected administrator, who had a taste for other people’s money.
Comments are closed.