To the Editor:

There have been questions raised over the past several days concerning the changes made by the St. Lawrence County Legislature about how the county and the local municipalities share the costs associated with workmen’s compensation insurance. I hope to provide some additional explanation and ultimately shed a ray of hope for the municipalities that ended up paying more as a result of the reconfiguration.

As has been reported, the previous process for determining who pays what involved a calculation that was weighted 70% on property value assessments and 30% on the actual claims filed by employees of each taxing entity. Clearly, the calculation of workers compensations costs has nothing to do with property values or assessments. Calculated costs should reflect risk relative to exposure and the history of prior claims. That is what this new formula does.

Some municipalities will pay more under the new plan. As was reported, the Town of Parishville will pay ~$20,000 in additional annual premiums. Conversely, I am pleased that both of the communities that I represent will pay less annually under the new formula; the Village of Norwood will pay $120,000 less and the Town of Norfolk will pay $8,800 less than they would have under the previous plan.

We were given several spreadsheets detailing different formulas. Every one provided a savings to both communities consistent with what was adopted. That means that under the previous plan, regardless of the new one, both communities were being overcharged relative to their risk and their history of claims. I am proud to have been part of the legislative team that was able to correct that.

Some officials have expressed concern that they were not given enough time to evaluate the new formula. I understand and, frankly, I agree with them. Our county attorney provided us with only two months notice that the formula was due for re-adoption. He presented a consultant who detailed a plan that was highly complex. From the date when the consultant presented his initial data set to our legislative subcommittee to the day where our Board was forced to vote on the matter as required by local law, we were only allowed 42 days to discuss and question the formulas. Mike is an excellent person and a good attorney but on this matter, I remain very disappointed that everyone involved wasn’t given more notice.

It should also be noted that every Republican in our Chamber voted to spend $10,000 of taxpayer money to retain this consultant in order to develop a new formula. When the final plan was presented, however, every Republican except for Mr. Acres from Madrid voted against its implementation. I don’t understand why; perhaps, the outcome was different than what they had initially expected.

To that end, last week, prior to the final vote, most members of the Republican caucus stated that they were going to stick with the “status quo”. I hate the status quo. Status quo means that you aren’t going anywhere new. I think we all know that we need to move forward in St. Lawrence County and we need to do so now. There is no time for the status quo.

With that said, those of us who voted to adopt this measure did something extraordinary that completely changed how cost sharing in St. Lawrence County works. Workman’s compensation claims for all volunteer and paid firefighters and EMS responders in the county will now be adjudicated to the county instead of to the municipalities that those volunteers would have otherwise been assigned. This not only broadens the countywide risk pool for these participants, which, should result in considerable savings in the aggregate, but it also completely absolves each municipality of most of its risk participants.

Let’s use Parishville as an example because that was the example quoted in the news story. In terms of workman’s compensation participants, how many paid municipal employees are there in Parishville? Maybe 10. With respect to volunteers, however, there are 65 volunteer firefighters and EMS responders in that community. Under the new formula, the county assumed responsibility for 86.6% of Parishville’s participants at almost no additional county borne cost. This holds true for most municipalities in the County.

In the long term, this redistribution of risk participants will likely save individual municipalities thousands of dollars annually. This is better for our communities and better for the volunteers that serve them. On the whole, I am pleased to have been a part of such an important change.

Jason A. Clark

Legislator, District 12