Thursday, September 1, 2016

Board of Aldermen Rubber Stamp Variable Life Insurance Policy After the Fact

Shining a Light on Germantown takes governance issues seriously.   
Our open records requests indicate that Patrick Lawton entered into a contract to begin coverage under his costly variable life insurance policy in 2002 before it was even considered at a meeting of the Mayor and Board of Aldermen. 

The Commercial Appeal article about the variable life insurance policies was discussed in my July 16 post. In my August 30 post  I pointed out that the minutes of the meeting hid the nature of these policies by implying that they were a simple renewal. The date these policies were approved was February 11, 2002. Unbelievably, Mr. Lawton had already begun his coverage days before the meeting, on February 6! 

Was approval of these policies merely perfunctory? Did the BMA approve this in advance of the public meeting?  And was that a violation of the Sunshine Law?  Perhaps public scrutiny would have saved the City over a million dollars in past and future premiums on all these policies. 

And was this even permissable under the Charter?  As discussed in an earlier post, the salaries and benefits have to be approved under a compensation plan approved by the board.  How did Patrick Lawton know the outcome of the vote before it was taken?






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