Overture Discussion at Council Last Night

This was my favorite part of the meeting, so I”m recapping it first. After all, its my birthday and I can do whatever I want, right? And I can’t resist a few bk comments.

OVERTURE ANNUAL PERFORMANCE CONTRACT

Public Comment
Jay Young, Overture Employee, neither in support or opposition. He says it is a delight to be back, he had forgotten what Tuesday nights were missing. He’s concerned about some of the things you addressed last fall, there was a lot of concern about welfare of employees, some of them written in the resolution and agreement, some have not gone as predicted, but there is an end in sight. Employee severance section calls for mayor and HR to work with AFSCME on severance, for all employees not just represented ones, there was a good deal of progress was mad until governor stopped everything, staff are concerned that if they do anything it could be considered reopening the contract. He thinks they can find a way out of the problem, he says people usually tell them what to do, he’s not ready to tell you what to do, he does not know, but you are creative thinkers and at the moment the severance issue is unresolved and employees can’t move forward until they make a decision, employees are supposed to decide by end of August, they are trying to move forward, but employees need more information. Overture needs to staff facility. And if we need to move people we don’t want September 1st come and then 30 people are bumping and then we have to deal with the avalanche that creates. Council members should have gotten an email from coworkers, they would like the council’s help.

Linda Baldwin says it is nice to be back, thanks Jay for speaking and is in support of the work of staff and particularly on this issue and want to work on it, esp. sick leave. She is here to thank everyone who worked on the agreement, please support with a yes vote. You got a transition report – its going well, staff is amazing, contracts are about done with unions, budget numbers are about to be completed for the year and do verify numbers in projections, for the first time they have departments budgeting, its very successful and exciting. Fundraising is a challenge, board is up to the challenge, excellent group of new people and they are moving forward. CEO search is on track, they hired a search firm with an international reputation in performing arts. She asks for the council to appoint the advisory board as soon as possible, they submitted names in May. Community engagement strategy is underway, will see efforts of that as deadline approaches in October, she is impressed with staff and board, this is incredible and exciting, thanks again, would appreciate yes vote and is ready to answer questions.

Discussion
Silence.

Mayor Paul Soglin sits there, waiting.

Pause.

Silence.

Shakes head . . . and gives them a funny look. Said something I didn’t hear.

No one speaks.

No one moves.

Mayor shifts in his seat.

Silence.

Mayor starts with Questions
Mayor asks Brad Wirtz, Human Resource Director have there been any negotiations on these issues on severance?
Ok, I don’t really know what is going on with the Mayor and the council, but this seemed like the obvious question to ask, but yet no one asked. I’m not sure what kind of a power struggle this is, but if it results in them not doing their jobs, it kinda sucks. Here’s a mayor ENCOURAGING questions, and everyone sits there . . . silent. I don’t get it. The culture of the council is so bizarre. I want elected officials who dig into the issues in a public forum – not a bunch of seat warmers. This is seriously disappointing. I hope Paul is successful in turning this around. I don’t know how long some of them can hold a grudge because their buddy Mayor Dave didn’t get re-elected, but, um, grow up and deal with it. That’s life, that’s politics. You win some, you lose some.

Wirtz says there were a a few meetings early on, early in 2011, they have and amount for the costs of transition, they talked about severance ideas, he met in closed session with the Board of Estimates where they talked about ideas and unfortunately then issues at the state happened and there was a change in administration and that got put on hold. And at this point there is a concern about if the severance payment is a modification to collective bargaining agreement. They have some ideas and are looking into them, they have an indication from the city attorney’s office that they might be ok, but he needs a more formal opinion before he brings it to council.

Mayor asks if Overture would participate in paying those costs.

Wirtz says there is no indication they will participate in sick leave and severance.

Mayor asks for estimate on how much that will cost.

Wirtz says if they just look at sick leave, many are eligible for retirement and we would have to pay it anyways, if look at the rest it would be about $285K.

Mayor asks about other severance besides sick leave.

Vacation and comp time, city would pay those. He says it is less than the sick leave costs, closer to $100K, for those eligible for retirement. There is another $300K in sick leave, the total they are looking at, under current rules and paying out sick leave is $600K.

Alders wake up/find their voice
Lauren Cnare asks Michael May, City Attorney, she says there is no mention of this issue in this agreement except when we look at the end and there is default language, it says the annual contract is void if structural agreement is in default, what if we do not resolve severance, is this relevant.

May says he thinks no – but he needs to go back and review, issue of severance is between city and employees, so up to us.
HALLELUJAH! Did the city attorney finally qualify his answer and admit he doesn’t know everything off the top of his head AND he didn’t just guess without saying he was guessing?!

Cnare asks if this has to be done by Sept. 1 deadline?

May says not aware of any deadline, this came up after the structural agreement that city wanted to look at it, hasn’t gotten much further.

Cnare and May have some back and forth where she asks if severance has to be addressed at this time or if it can be addressed at another time? He ends up saying it can be addressed later.
Yes

Shiva Bidar-Sielaff asks Wirtz if he has a recollection of what the council asked them to look at severance package?

Wirtz says that his recollection was that a number of topics they were required to discuss and we did that and then I come back to Board of Estimates and he was supposed to get approval for making severance payments, they had one meeting, a lot of direction was given about appropriate payment then everything changed and here we are.

Bidar-Sielaff says that her full intent was that severance would be paid to those who were forcefully voluntarily making a choice to go to Overture. She will forcibly voluntarily work on that, we need to figure out how to do that given the political environment given that we can’t reopen contracts but you mentioned we might have options and she will follow up, it was her understanding and intention that there would be additional costs to the city.

No one else speaks. Or asks questions. They mostly seem like rebuttal questions. You can tell there is some unspoken struggle going on. Must be a lot going on behind the scenes – not very transparent.

Mayor steps down to speak
Cnare in the chair.

Mayor says this issue shows you inadequacy of agreement with Overture and this is a problem and liability which is now compounded by what has happened in the last few months in terms of their ability to spend money, if we go back to the agreement this is replacing, there was an arrangement about the status of the employees, that that is now changing cuz of the agreement, and agreement requested by Overture, they initiated it, in terms of making the change their change has created a series of consequences not addressed by this agreement. Consequences in 100s of 1000s of dollars and the folks who are party to this agreement will not pay and have no interest in paying. It is more than severance costs, those of you who know about bumping process are well aware of lengthy time it takes and costs involved, all of which will be borne by City of Madison. Earlier today, Brad and I met and reviewed this and I’m going to come to a recommendation for you, as the pro tem has said, we want to support our employees, and we will but we will come to a very expensive resolution, I have a solution for that too. If we negotiate with the union, then we jeopardize the agreement, he recommends we pick up all of the costs regarding lost savings they accrued for health insurance, we would have had to pick it up anyway for retiring people, but that is another $280K. He also recommends we do it unilaterally and that we not negotiate with the bargaining unit, he doesn’t see any other way to resolve the issue. He says they also need to pick up other severance costs in the 6 figures, in next few weeks it will come to Board of Estimates, exactly what the pro tem has asked for, we will have a firmer price tag on the high side, because we don’t know how many employees are going to take it, but then he recommends they deduct it from the payment to be made to Overture and it will be neatly resolved in that regard, but it takes care of the future of the employees, and not spin out of control with consequences with whole series of bumping that would be horribly disruptive.

Clear attempts to fight back
Mark Clear says “with all due respect to the Mayor” {I don’t believe that for a moment} we are off topic, these issues are important and potentially expensive but not relevant, if you go back to original resolution passed in December, its says that the city may determine to make additional payments {Wow, does he plan to not pay the employees?), those are at our discretion, they are not related to operations of Overture Foundation, he hopes to pass the performance contract, he agrees severance need to be addressed, but not part of contract.

Clear Smackdown
Mayor says that when and organization like the city with responsibilities adopts a contract, all costs and consequences should be known and it is highly irresponsible to engage in negotiations and embrace a contract without full indication of what the full costs are and this should have been in the contract and he wants to makes sure that everyone who votes on this understands the full financial ramifications without having resolved severance. It could be $300K – 600K. It is his obligation to bring this up if you are not going to address it.

No one else dares to say anything . . . won’t wade in.

Vote
Voice vote, many ayes.

Some silence

Then a few hesitant no’s.

No one had the guts to call roll call so we could know who voted what way.

Thanks again fro the lack of transparency there folks.