Brynn writes:

That was my reaction last week when I learned that our state doesn’t require public employees to pay into Social Security if they participate in the Public Employees’ Retirement System.

I wrote about this in Monday’s paper as it relates to the employees of Housing Kitsap, who voted in April to remove themselves from paying Social Security.

It’s a bit convoluted, but in 1955 Washington voluntarily entered into an agreement with the federal government to offer Social Security to public employees who weren’t covered by a state-authorized retirement plan. By 1991 it was mandatory that all public agencies offer either Social Security or a state-authorized retirement plan for employees.

This mandatory requirement meant that if agencies like housing authorities had a state-authorized retirement plan in place for employees and those employees were also paying into Social Security, the state needed documentation that said the agency had voluntarily agreed to pay into Social Security.

The state’s Employment Security Department managed these agreements from 1951 to 2009. When the state’s Department of Retirement Services took them over it realized some public agencies were paying into Social Security erroneously.

Housing Kitsap was one of those agencies. I filed a records request with the state retirement services department to see the files related to the housing agency and why it didn’t vote in 1989 to continue to pay into Social Security. (1989 is when the agency authorized its state-approved retirement plan for employees, called PERS).

Emails and files show the housing board was told in 1993 it needed to allow staff to vote on whether to continue to pay into Social Security, but the board never took action.

A file from April 16, 1993 shows the employment security department sent letters to the housing authority board and began the process of holding a vote, but a hand-written note on the file explains why the vote was never held:

“11-18-93 Rob says board won’t approve.”

Rob, I think is in reference to Rob Joseph, the account supervisor named on the document. The document never says why the board halted the process, but for employees to vote the board had to approve it first. As a result the authority and its employees have paid into Social Security for 24 years when they potentially should not have.

“All of these years that the housing authority was participating in PERS they were at the same time erroneously taking Social Security out of the PERS people’s pay and they should not have been,” said Melanie Piccin, state Social Security coordinator with the Department of Retirement Systems.

Employees finally took the vote in April and voted 34 to 18  to withdraw from Social Security. Now they’re asking the housing board to reconsider its plan to pay down the agency’s debt with the money it would have paid into Social Security on their behalf. Instead they’d like to see the money go into a deferred compensation program.

So what other public employees have the option not to pay into Social Security? According to Piccin, all of the state’s agencies have the voluntary coverage in place, which means these employees pay Social Security. The only state agency that doesn’t pay is the Washington State Patrol, she said.

All school districts and the state’s higher education institutions, like public universities and colleges, pay into Social Security. But the retirement services department is learning many of the state’s smaller political subdivisions like cities and housing authorities are paying into the federal system without an agreement on hand.

Beyond Kitsap’s housing authority Piccin has also contacted the city of Sea-Tac and Port of Seattle (including its firefighters and police) to notify them of the discrepancy.

Brynn Grimley writes:

How to fit the details of an eight-hour board work session into an 18-inch article is, to say the least, a struggle.

Realistically it isn’t possible to get into the in-depth conversations, the different discussions that evolve (or at times devolve) into an end result. In the end, a reporter is left with summarizing, often finding highlights of the session and using those to describe the day.

And more often than not, after sitting through the daylong session, you leave knowing your day — unlike everyone else in the room — is far from over. Deadline looms and the need to get the story written for the web and the next day’s paper is pressing.

The end result? Crunching eight hours of information into two hours of writing.

That was my Tuesday. Uff-Da.

I attended the Housing Kitsap (formerly Kitsap County Consolidated Housing Authority) all day retreat. (Retreat is such a misnomer because it wasn’t like the board was getting manis and pedis or massages, they were planning for the future).

It’s clear the day’s session — which at times felt more like a group therapy session than anything else — was needed. The agency had Professional Options provide consultation for the day. President and CEO of the firm, Dona Keating, was the facilitator.

Keating laid out an ambitious agenda with the purpose of the day’s meeting stated at the top:

To strengthen board involvement and accountability; refine mission, strategy and vision for KCCHA; identify and achieve additional revenue stream; implement and/or improve operational efficiency.

It’s no secret that the housing authority faced the possibility of dissolution after it became clear it couldn’t pay loans tied to the revitalization efforts of downtown Bremerton. It’s also no secret that the agency got away from its mission for a while.

But what seems to be regularly overlooked by many of the commentators on our stories about the authority is the work that has gone on over the past year to keep the agency afloat. When people criticize the agency, they may not always think about the impact that has on the staff who have worked hard to return the agency to its mission and who have found ways to save on expenditures so that the clients remain a priority.

Regardless of where you stand on whether the county made the right decision when it bailed out the agency with a loan to the tune of $40.5 million, the staff, current administration and housing board in place now are not the same people that lead the agency astray of its mission.

Some say bankrupt the agency and start over. But what does that mean for the people living in the agency’s public housing units? Where do they go if the agency that distributes the federal HUD subsidies goes away? This is what housing authority staff think about.

It’d be a lie to say staff doesn’t get discouraged by disparaging comments left on kitsapsun.com stories.

As Jennifer Laslovich, director of asset management, explained Tuseday during the session: she believes in the mission of housing low-income families and making affordable housing available to Kitsap area residents. And just like the rest of the staff that has stayed with the authority, she chose to stay with the organization through this difficult time to see the agency succeed.

After hearing from management that agency staff was fearful of the housing authority board, the board determined a priority going forward would be to create unity within the organization. That includes unity between board members, unity between staff, and unity between the board and staff. With that unity will also come trust, which is currently lacking within the organization and among board members.

Housing commissioners also talked about changing the makeup of who sits on the board, however they didn’t get into specifics of how it might change. They talked about the need to keep the housing authority’s best interest at the forefront when making decisions, and the need to be unified after those decisions are made — they shouldn’t go back to their respective elected offices and do something that could undermine the decision made by the housing board.

The last two hours of the retreat centered around the creation of a strategic plan. Executive director Tony Caldwell told the board he would like to see the plan be a hybrid between a goals-based plan and an issues-based plan.

This means the board should ask themselves: five years down the road, where do you as housing commissioners see the agency? They should also identify the issues facing the authority over the next one to three years and create an action plan for solving those issues.

Cognizant of the need to stay on top of the agency’s finances, the board determined financial viability should be the first priority of the plan. The next priority needs to be strengthening the agency’s core mission.

The board wasn’t equipped to get into the nitty-gritty details of what that plan would look like beyond setting the priorities, but Keating was adamant that they get the foundation in place now. The plan should be viewed as a working document that is formed with the addition of staff recommendations and board vetting in the coming months.

The board meets again Sept. 7, and it will be interesting to see the dynamics following Tuesday’s meeting.

Brynn Grimley writes:

Gardner was out yesterday and I’m not sure if he’s feeling better today or not since I’m in a county commissioner work study this morning (he’s probably still sleeping, lucky guy!) so it looks like, for now, you’re all stuck with me. Sorry.

As you might remember, yesterday I posted a blog entry about the Kitsap County Consolidated Housing Authority and its potentially impending move. But, if you’ve already read today’s paper (or the Web site), you know a decision wasn’t reached.

In fact, I anticipated the meeting would include a decent discussion about the matter, but none of that happened. Well, that’s not exactly true, there was a discussion but it was held in executive session, so no one but the board of directors and authority staff were privy to what was said.

This was a contrast from last month’s meeting, when County commissioner Steve Bauer made it clear he was frustrated because it seemed the agency was resisting the move from Silverdale to Bremerton.

Executive sessions are held to protect sensitive information from being known to the public (usually its related to personnel performance, real estate dealings or potential litigation). After the meeting I chatted with executive director Tony Caldwell, board chairman Lary Coppola and called Bauer. None gave much of a hint as to what the discussion centered around. (Bauer said he wasn’t trying to be “cute” when I pressed him. He said when he could discuss the issues publicly he would. We’ll wait and see). They did say there is a tenant potentially interested in moving into the authority’s space in the Norm Dicks Government Center, and that was part of the discussion in the executive session. That’s the most I could get out of them.

If the decision comes down from the board for the move to happen, Caldwell and his staff are ready. They’ve already gone through the first floor office area declaring certain office furniture “surplus” that they won’t need.

In the limited discussion they had about the move during the public meeting, Caldwell said he and staff have “sat down and discussed how we can make this building work for us.”

“We continue to hold down on our expenses as much as we can,” he said about the overall status of the authority.

The board could reconvene in a special meeting as early as this week to make a decision on the move, or it could be next week, or the following. Not sure, but when I know, I’ll let you know.

Brynn Grimley writes:

As I was compiling the weekly “Heads Up” post that we’re now running each week on the Caucus, I was reminded that the Kitsap County Consolidated Housing Authority will be meeting Tuesday afternoon. (Or, I guess I should say this afternoon, since I’m scheduling this post to come out Tuesday morning).

Recently hired executive director Tony Caldwell is expected tell the housing authority board whether he found an alternative to the proposal that the authority move into the vacant space it currently owns inside the Norm Dicks Government Center. The story I wrote about this resulted in a mix of opinions about whether the agency should relocate to Bremerton (where it doesn’t have much of a presence by way of programs or housing) or find a home elsewhere in the county.

To refresh your memories, the story is here. In response to the article and the many comments, Caldwell wrote a “My Turn” for the paper. That can be read here.

Caldwell came to speak with the Kitsap Sun’s editorial board a week ago and in that conversation he said the authority will do whatever the board directs it to do. However, he, as the new executive director, wanted the chance to see if he could find an alternative that made the most sense for the authority and staff (and the most sense financially). He reiterated that the authority has no presence in downtown Bremerton (remember Kitsap County owns the Harborside condos now, not the authority).

Regardless of what is decided, the housing authority will have to move because the county is trying to sell the Bayshore Drive building. I’ll be at the meeting to see where they land.