City Council President Eugene Jankowski backpedaled Monday evening on a proposal to provide council members with a $500 annual stipend for gym memberships.
He blamed a news outlet for "mishandling" a report of the Jan. 27 conference meeting where the city manager first raised the issue.
During Monday’s conference session, Jankowski said, "Why council got dragged into this, maybe it was clickbait? Maybe people thought it was something to scream about? I got a lot of people screaming about it. I don’t recall us worrying about us being involved. I think we were talking about the employees. Correct me if I’m wrong on that."
Jankowski said Monday that the $500 was off the table, but there would be a $50 increase for employees to the current $100 allowance toward gym memberships included in the new budget.
The Batavian, the only local news source to report on the topic, stands behind its story. (City Council considers increasing gym perk to $500 for employees, council members)
The video recording of the Jan. 27 meeting substantiates that council members were included in the original proposal and that Jankowski endorsed it.
Here are the relevant portions of the transcript:
At 1:00:55 in the video (the link to the video above is timestamped to the start of the discussion), Tabelski said: “I’ve had many employees come to me, council members come to me, saying wouldn't it be great if we could provide some kind of membership or incentive towards using the new facility, so I went and looked at this year's budget. We have interest in earnings right now at about $24,000 that might top out around $50,000, so we could cover the majority of employees and council members if they were to sign up for this incentive, so I leave it to you to discuss and determine if this is something you'd like to move forward with.”
The only concern raised by any council member was a suggestion of discrimination against other gyms by providing $500 to YMCA and only $100 to other city gyms. The objection was raised by Councilman Bob Bialkowski.
Tabelski said, “We could go get rid of the $100 and just, I mean, force them to join the Y. It was just an offering. You're actually the council member who asked me about joining.”
Jankowski said during the discussion, “Right, so now it's not a good idea? Well, I think it's a great idea.”
Later, he said, “I like the idea, I like where we're going with it because in the long run, when you stay healthy, it saves us money on the other end on healthcare,” adding later, “I think as it’s written, I think it looks pretty good.”
“It’s a great perk for the employees,” Councilwoman Kathy Briggs said.
Bialkowski countered with offering $200 versus the $500.
Tabelski said, “Employees would have the option for the $100 reimbursement, which they already have today, or if they'd like to join the Y, we'd give a benefit of $500. Again, specifically, I was asked from employees, from unions, what can you do to help us with covering costs of the new YMCA, so nobody asked me to join any other gyms, so I think it's a good idea.”
Council voted by 6-1 to move the proposal to its next business meeting. Bialkowski voted no and Briggs, Jankowski, Al McGinnis, Rich Richmond, David Twichell and Derek Geib voted yes.
Jankowski: "Okay, so that gets moved to the business meeting for a final vote, and then if anybody has any concerns, we can rediscuss that.”
The support for the proposal on Jan. 27 was not apparent on Monday.
By a unanimous vote of 9-0 Monday evening, City Council said no to offering city employees or council members $500 toward a YMCA gym membership and opted instead to raise the current perk of $100 to $150 for the new downtown facility.
Jankowski emphasized that the health benefit will be for city employees only and will not include council members. Although initially discussed as one option, the $500 allowance was taken off the table in lieu of an agreement for $50 incremental increases on a yearly basis, he said.
“I know I can speak for many of my colleagues here. We all listen to the ideas, and they never end up the way they start out because everyone weighs in, and it gets balanced and moved around. So, what we’ve come up with in the budget is to add the $50 stipend. It will apply to all those individuals who are on the city’s self-insured health care plan, which doesn’t include council, because we are not on that plan, so we’re out of it,” Jankowski said during the conference meeting at City Hall. “Out of 150 employees, we only have 15 people presently taking part in this program, and I'd like to see an increase in their benefit and for our health benefit; our health costs can go down when people are healthier. So that's how we're going to do it. We're going to start it off, slightly increase, see how it works, and maybe talk about it again in future budgets going forward.”
The $50 per city employee has been put into the budget but did not alter the expected 50-cent tax rate decrease, city officials said. That is still projected to be $8.46 per $1,000 assessed value, down from the current $8.96 per $1,000.
A resolution was in council’s packet for the $500 per employee allowance for a gym membership, and council was instructed that a no vote would defeat the resolution as initially proposed. Passage of the budget would then enact the $50 increase for employees instead, effective April 1.
Of 150 city employees, only 15 currently participate in the program.
A full slate of members, including Kathy Briggs, Tammy Schmidt, Al McGinnis, David Twichell, Paul Viele, Rich Richmond, Derek Geib, Bob Bialkowski and Jankowski voted no.
“It’s an incentive for people to be healthy,” Richmond said. “They’re going to have to prove they’re using it.”
