FAIRHOPE, Ala. - Three days after the City Council voted last week to reduce some city employee health and retirement benefits, Mayor Tim Kant vetoed the new ordinance.

“I am exercising my veto of the Insurance Benefits measure regarding health care and dental insurance for active employees as well as retirees,” Kant wrote Oct. 14 in a memo to City Clerk Lisa Hanks. “I feel we could wait a year and seek other options to cut these expenses.”

The veto will be presented at the Oct. 25 council meeting, according to Hanks, and will require a two-thirds vote to override, or a 4-1 vote, instead of a simple 3-2 majority.

On Oct. 11, the council voted 3-2, with Council members Mike Ford and Debbie Quinn voting against the ordinance, to end the city’s health benefit program for retired workers hired after Sept. 30 this year, and to reduce by 10 percent the amount the city contributes to premiums for family coverage of current and future city employees.

Until the ordinance was passed, the city paid the total amount of premiums for both family and individual coverage, which was not changed by the new law.

The ordinance also would end city contributions to employee dental insurance as of Jan. 1.

“I don’t believe there has been enough input from employees or the elected officials regarding this ordinance and its changes in the insurance benefits,” Kant stated in his memo vetoing the new ordinance. “The compromise was for City employees to pay for dental insurance if they wanted to keep the policy and no other cuts were mentioned. Family coverage is paying for all the deductions and all employees should be helping with the solution.”

Also last Thursday, Council President Lonnie Mixon sent an e-mail to City Attorney Marion “Tut” Wynne, stating he wanted ‘to file a formal request with the state Attorney General as to the legitimacy of the veto, since the mayor will have personal gain from his veto,” and also inquired as to filing with the state Ethics Commission.

“As soon as he is no longer an elected official, he will be on the (city’s benefit) program as a retired employee,” Mixon stated. “Thus, his veto ensures that as of Oct. 1, 2012, he will not have to pay the 10 percent family premium.”

Wynne responded to the Courier Monday, stating the “veto is not an ethics violation,” and that it requires a council resolution to seek an AG opinion.

Mixon stated in an e-mail Monday that Wynne had informed him the mayor does not have a legal conflict of interest by exercising a veto “since he gets treatment that is no different than the other municipal retirees.”

The health benefits ordinance was the subject of numerous meetings by several city committees during the past year and was driven in part, according to some city members, by the increasingly large “contingent liability” due employees for health care cost upon their retirement, as well as by information gathered by the city, showing that few municipalities pay the entire amount of the premium for family coverage.

“Yes, the retirement benefit needs to be addressed due to the high cost afterward,” Kant wrote. “A suggestion would be to increase the retirement age from 55 years old to 60 years old to coincide with Social Security.”

The current benefit program pays the cost of employee premiums for employees upon their retirement until Medicare eligibility.

“We do not need to rush with this decision to reduce the City employees’ and retirees’ health care and dental benefits,” Kant wrote. “Currently, the City employees’ costs and benefits are at 33.8 percent which is unheard of in City Government. Therefore, I feel inclined to use my veto power with this ordinance.”