City officials also said steps are being developed to require the authority follow a plan to repay $465,000 in employee-retirement costs that the city was forced to pay in December.
Todd A. McGee
HOLYOKE – The state will be asked to audit the finances of the Holyoke Geriatric Authority, city councilors and authority board members said.
Also, officials said in a meeting Wednesday at City Hall steps are underway to require that the authority follow a plan to repay $465,000 in employee-retirement costs that the city was forced to pay in December.
Members of the revamped authority board also said they would abide by councilors’ request that the authority stop hiring consultants. Among fees noted were those from a Springfield law firm who charged $18 to look up names and addresses of city councilors.
The steps came in a City Council Finance Committee meeting with authority officials. That included Patricia C. Devine, the former city councilor who was appointed to the authority board and elected chairwoman April 25.
The steps also prompted City Auditor Brian G. Smith to praise such progress after years of authority officials failing to pay bills to the city and refusing to discuss financial plans.
“This is the most productive meeting we’ve had on this topic yet and I’m actually leaving here with some hope,” Smith said.
Councilors and other officials said they were hopeful with with Devine as board chairwoman, a financial plan will be followed and communication from the authority will improve.
“We’ve been waiting two years for answers to questions,” Councilor Joseph M. McGiverin said.
“The board seems to be a little less divisive, if I can use that word, and we seem to be ready to move forward,” Devine said.
Some councilors, though, said they were disappointed authority Executive Director Sheryl Y. Quinn failed to attend the meeting.
The authority is an 80-bed nursing home with another 80 daycare slots for elderly people at 45 Lower Westfield Road.
The facility is overseen by a board consisting of three appointed by the City Council and three appointed by the mayor, with those six choosing a seventh.
Under the 1971 state act that established the authority, the council and mayor each must appoint one director representing the medical field, one representing the legal or financial field and a third with experience in geriatrics.
Devine is the board’s seventh member, voted in by the other board members. The vote was actually 4-1, because at the time the vote was taken, the board had two vacancies.
Steven J. Kravetz, who had been the seventh member, resigned during the April 25 meeting, saying the process had become a “circus.”
Former board member John P. Counter, executive director of the Greenfield Housing Authority, also resigned a few days before the meeting. He cited professional and personal commitments.
The other authority board members are Joseph T. O’Neill, who preceded Devine as chairman, Raymond P. Murphy Jr., Charles F. Glidden, Jacqueline Watson and James Brunault, who was appointed by the City Council April 17. The board has one vacancy.
Despite the ouster of O’Neill as chairman and the appointments of Devine and Brunault, it was unclear what could be done to get the authority to repay the $465,000 in retirement costs. Authority officials have said an unavoidable problem is a hole created by federal reimbursements covering only about 75 percent of costs.
Finance Committee Chairman Todd A. McGee said he would file an order seeking a review of the authority by the office of State Auditor Suzanne M. Bump.
“Because we don’t know what has happened behind the scenes,” McGee said.
Devine said the board would file a similar request to Bump’s office.
City Solicitor Elizabeth Rodriguez-Ross said her office is intent on resolving authority issues. She has begun talks with Quinn about an authority payment plan for the city to recoup the $465,000, she said.
Councilors were dismayed to learn the authority paid Ball Consulting Group LLC, of Newton, a public relations company, $30,000 through December and owes it another $13,000.
The authority also amassed $16,145 in fees to the firm Egan, Flanagan and Cohen, of Springfield.
Besides charging $18 for 20 minutes worth of work in obtaining councilors’ names and addresses – which McGiverin noted was available in numerous places, including the city website – the law firm charged $180 for showing up at a meeting on March 30 that wound up being cancelled. The firm charged another $9 for a Feb. 3 call to Quinn to resend a fax.
Also during the meeting, McGee and other councilors questioned members of the city Retirement Board about why authority retirement costs were allowed to go unpaid for years. The $465,000 bill included costs dating back to 2008.
State law requires that entities such as the authority and the city make contributions according to a schedule to ensure retired employees’ pensions get funded.
The authority is current on pension payments made from employee payroll deductions, but struggles with its own pension contributions, and other bills, which prompted McGee’s questions.
“Why are you not having a legal battle with them to get them to pay?” McGee said.
Board member Daniel R. Owens said the Retirement Board took the position that it was best to try to work with the authority.
Board member Jorge L. Neves said the Retirement Board is a panel of trustees that lacks legal standing to bring a lawsuit.
“We don’t have standing to bring the lawsuit, and we all know that even if we could bring the lawsuit, we couldn’t collect on it,” Neves said.
Rodriguez-Ross disputed that, saying the Retirement Board did have legal standing to sue the authority to recover unpaid bills.
“They have breached their contract with you,” Rodriguez-Ross said.
Councilor Linda L. Vacon addressed a point that has irritated some councilors. Criticism of the authority’s failure to pay bills or discuss its finances has been presented by authority defenders as an assault on the facility’s residents and employees, she said.
“Nonsense,” Vacon said.
Taxpayers deserve to know how their money is being spent, she said.