The Missouri Ethics Commission on March 18 dismissed a complaint that Brentwood elected officials, Mayor Pat Kelly and aldermen, Andy Leahy and Keith Robertson (Ward 3) and Tom Kramer (Ward 4) received health, dental and vision benefits from the city without an ordinance to establish the benefits.
The commission found that the benefits were included in Brentwood’s annual city budgets, which is passed by ordinance.
The commission stated in identical letters to Kelly, Leahy, Kramer and Robertson that a state law specifies that a governing body can, as part of compensation for elected officials, “contribute to the cost of a plan, including a plan underwritten by insurance, for furnishing all or part of hospitalization or medical expenses for the subdivision’s elected officials.”
The commission said it could find no legal authority to prohibit the city from authorizing the insurance benefits, and no grounds to support a violation.
The situation is simple for people to decide. The people in charge decided to give themselves health benefits in a legal manner. The same manner they chose kept it from the public eye. I for one, prefer a leader who is open and honest. If you want to give yourself benefits and have that right, then do it, just do it openly, let people know you have that right and not in a way that makes people doubt your trustworthiness.
As voters we can decide whether or not we prefer city leaders who are up front with us or if we are okay with leaders who keep as much information from us as they desire.
Looking at just the recent developments, the ECDC meetings were behind closed doors, these were not personnel issues and it effected all of us, why were the citizens left out of the meetings, was that fair to you the Brentwood resident?
Now some of our leaders want to pass a code of conduct which will put in writing a way to keep information from flowing to us. This is going on now.
Do we see a pattern of openness and honesty or one that looks a bit suspicious? We the voters get to decide, that is our right.
If as citizens we have a 100% trust in our leaders and know without any doubt they are acting in our best interest with our tax dollars, than making laws and spending monies without us knowing why, is no problem for us.
For the opposing side the challenge is last time we voters took our eyes off the ball, it led to one of the worst state audits in Missouri.
We saw these same leaders hand out charity dollars that were never made in our city golf tournament, tens of thousands of dollars in mobile phones found in a closet never used, illegal overtime to fire fighters, illegal use of city credit cards, the breaking of state law to pay attendance bonuses, gambling debts on city credit cards that no one caught internally, and still no idea about the city’s inventory which has gone years without any record keeping.
Again, we as the voters of Brentwood get to decide. One, you trust the current group, there is no need to question their action, no need to keep an eye on them, they are doing a great job or two, you would like a new group that does business in a more transparent way.
There is nothing to argue, it is decided in the voting booth.
Mr. Jones…You are making my case for me. As I said, the Missouri Ethics Commission dismissed the alegations brought by Alderperson Saunders. You even state that, “I am no lawyer”, yet you go on to elaborate on what the law says. This is my problem with your group. You have a ruling from a governing body, that is based on law, and you still are not satisfied. As I have said in the past, you are intitled to your opinion. I personally am not familiar with the city’s budget, so I don’t know if there is a specific line for insurance for elected officials.
Mr Jones…I don’t know you from Adam, but I am a life long resident of Brentwood, and I think you are wrong. I have friends all over St. Louis Co., and they pay more taxes, pay for services that we get for free, and don’t have a fraction of the amenities we have. While I wish we didn’t have all the commercial businesses we have, I know we need their taxes to provide us with all these perks. Hopefully, as you get older and need to live on a fixed income, you will appreciate all this city provides. So when you say these people are not good leaders, you have to look at the big picture, not just one issue!
You must be a politician, you said everything except answering my question. Let me break this down to its components.
A) I never said they are not good leaders. I said not being a criminal does not make them good leaders. I will now say that in my opinion they are not.
B) My question was: Who is saying they aren’t satisfied with these findings? Your original post claimed that some people are not satisfied with this report. I have not seen that in the comments. In fact as a critic, I am saying that I personally am satisfied. So what I feel like you are trying to do is vilify us critics before anyone has said anything about being unsatisfied.
Mr Jones…the people who are not satisfied are the ones that keep looking for criminal activity when it doesn’t exist. Why keep filing ethics complaints, when nothing criminal has been done. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, just don’t shove yours down my throat. I am sure more complaints will be filed and more complaints will be tossed out. All that I am saying is that several times these people have filed complaints when they thought there was wrong doing, and the state said there wasn’t. These people are wrong more often than not.
I just moved to Brentwood 3 years ago and knew no one before moving here. I am not looking for criminal activity, I am just trying to understand to make an informed choice come election time. My understanding is that there is no ordinance that “explicitly” provides the health care benefit to elected officials. This benefit was only known by elected officials as they were elected and was brought to light to the public only when Ms. Saunders became an Alderwoman. That’s when the Aldermen and Mayor started using the “It was in the budget ordinance” excuse to cover the ordinance requirement in Section 79.270, RSMo that the election commission refers to in their letter. I am no lawyer but common sense tells me that burying the benefit in a budget ordinance without a line item referring to it seems like someone is trying to hide something. In reading the statute, common sense tells me that, although using the budget ordinance may have been just enough to make the practice legal, not having an ordinance explicitly stating the healthcare benefit is definitely not in the spirit of the law. This is why I want to know:
“Can someone with knowledge on the case please comment on if the City’s budget ordinance, during the years the benefits were offered to the Aldermen and Mayor, contain a separate line item stating “Insurance Benefit” or something similar? Something that a taxpayer could see that distinguished the item from the Aldermen and Mayor’s pay?”
To me, if there was no line item then someone is hiding something and that will more than likely affect my vote. So please, point me to the line item.
Brentwood_Resident: who has stated that they aren’t satisfied? This is the first I’m hearing about the complaint being dropped. I’ve been a pretty vocal critic of these guys, and I’m satisfied on this issue. I’m glad they’re not getting insurance anymore, but if the ethics commission says they didn’t break any laws, that’s good enough for me. They’re not criminals, that doesn’t make them good leaders though.
This is what bothers me, the ethics commission drops the complaint, and people still aren’t satisfied. There is a big difference between something someone doesn’t like, and an illegal act. Same with the state audit, the auditor stated that there was no criminal activity, but that still isn’t enough. Stop the witch hunt and let’s get back to running the city. The meetings don’t seem to accomplish anything. Seems like Saunders isn’t delivering all the corruption she promised.
Can someone with knowledge on the case please comment on if the City’s budget ordinance, during the years the benefits were offered to the Aldermen and Mayor, contain a separate line item stating “Insurance Benefit” or something similar? Something that a taxpayer could see that distinguished the item from the Aldermen and Mayor’s pay?
This clarity is a move in the right direction. Good to read.