Staff recommends approval of the Ordinance to amend Mayor and Council Compensation to correctly reflect the current compensation of Mayor and Councilmembers.

It was recently brought to the attention of city staff that section 2-201, BMCC, which sets forth the compensation of the Mayor and Councilmembers, did not reflect the additional benefits which are included in their compensation as required by state law. Group insurance and retirement contributions are benefits which are currently provided to Mayor and Council and are included in compensation. 

The City is required to offer these benefits to the Mayor and Councilmembers under Montana law. Specifically, MCA 2-18-701 provides that, once a group insurance plan has been entered into, the City is required to offer the group insurance benefits to elected officials. Additionally, under MCA 19-3-413(1)(a), membership in the statewide Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) is optional for elected officials but the option to elect active membership in PERS is required.  Therefore, the City must offer this benefit to elected officials under MCA 19-3-413.  

These benefits have continuously been provided to the Mayor and Councilmembers for the past several decades and the Ordinance should be amended to correctly reflect the compensation provided.

City Council may:

• Approve the amended ordinance to reflect the correct amount of compensation, or;
• Disapprove the ordinance, which would result in a requirement that Mayor and Councilmembers be required to pay increased premiums for any selected benefits in order to resolve the conflict between state law (MCA 2-18-701 and 19-3-413) and the current ordinance (BMCC 2-201).

There is no increase costs to the city as a result of passing this amendment.  This has been the City's long term practice, in compliance with state law, to provide elected officials access to our group health insurance plan and to the statewide retirment system.