By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- Village board members had varying responses to the proposed new system of calculating workers compensation payments, with one of them accusing the county legislature’s Republican majority of lashing out against Democrats.

Under the new proposal, The Village of Massena will see a $155,400 increase from the current $168,900 to $324,300.

St. Lawrence County serves as the administrator for workers for the self-funded workers’ compensation insurance for the vast majority of municipalities in the area. For the past few years the county has been working to establish a new algorithm for contributing communities based on actual claims and risk factors.

For decades communities paid 90 percent of their shares based on property value and 10 percent based on risk. Over the past three years the county has been adjusting the calculation to focus more on risk and actual claims. The county modified the formula to 70/30 then to 60/40. Currently the formula is 50 percent risk and 50 percent property value, but Monday legislators agreed to move to a 100 percent risk based-contribution.

Mayor Tim Currier said he is upset that the municipalities weren’t consulted beforehand, but wants to know more and is open to the possibility that this could be the better way to handle it.

“I am not pleased with the lack of communication prior to doing this … Personally I’m fine with a fairer system,” Currier said, however, “I added it up, I don’t quite understand it.

“I am concerned the county’s worker comp payment will drop $700,000 … I think they have the most employees in the system.”

Under the new calculation St. Lawrence County will save about $700,000 per year, but still remains the largest contributor to the fund with a $1.26 million share.

He said he plans to meet with the county administrator to try and find out more.

“If they can prove to us this is warranted, how do you argue that? This plan is far more beneficial to us than to go to the private sector,” Currier said. “It’s a substantial amount of money from us to walk away from that plan because of our liabilities.”

“It’s concerning on both folds. The shock of the announcement because of the lack of dialogue beforehand just amazed me. For municipalities like Massena to not have more … it just doesn’t make sense,” Deputy Mayor Matt Lebire said.

Both he and Trustee Tim Ahlfeld said they think the county should also reconfigure their sales tax formula, which Ahlfeld said isn’t fair to larger communities like Massena.

“With the approach they’re going to take with this item, we need to go to them and look at things such as sales tax to see if the most fair system is being used,” Lebire said.

“If you’re going to change the formula, let’s change it all around,” Ahlfeld said. “They’re benefitting sales tax-wise from what comes out of the town and village of Massena” “Our three legislators are on our side.”

Ahlfeld went on later in the meeting to accuse the county legislature’s Republican majority of concocting the workers comp proposal as political gamesmanship and a way to “get back” at the Democrats who represent portions of Massena. The town and village’s county representatives are Lisa Bell, Greg Paquin and Tony Arquette, who all voted against the change. Massena’s village board members, including the mayor, are all Democrats. The town board, with the exception of the Republican supervisor, are also all Democrats.

“I think what you’ve got more than anything else is political posturing in Canton. It’s a Republican-controlled board. Just so happens three of the members in our area are all Democrats. Nice way to get back at them. Remember that next time you go pull the lever,” Ahlfeld said. “That’s exactly what’s going on there. Republicans formed select committees, they met behind closed doors and they said ‘there you go. You sort it out.’”

He also questioned the announcement’s timing, which they learned about shortly before the July 4 weekend.

“To drop it on a holiday week, that’s good politics or strategy on their part. It doesn’t pass the smell test,” Ahlfeld said.

Trustee Albert “Herb” Deshaies was equally unimpressed.

“This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of,” he said. “And we’ve got our legislators voting against it, too. The legislators should have more sense than that … something’s got to be crazy there, it’s got to be crazy, jumping up that high.”

A Massena resident who unsuccessfully ran for village board in November as a Republican said he thinks the village lawmakers should be communicating more often with county elected officials.

“It should not take this board by surprise … It shouldn’t happen at all,” Joel Greig said. “This is part of the responsibility of the government.”

Deputy Mayor Matt Lebire said although they don’t often meet with Massena’s reps in person, they frequently discuss county business by phone or email.

“I’m not going to dismiss phone calls and emails as a legitimate communication line,” Lebire said. “I don’t know if the critique of them is they should have known more than two weeks ago … Our legislator informed when he knew.”