County staff to pay more for insurance [Ocala Star-Banner, Fla.]

July 13--The Marion County Commission on Monday began its detailed review of next year's $512 million county budget -- and immediately decided one way to cut costs was to make employees shoulder more of their health insurance costs.

Prodded by Commissioner Charlie Stone, the board agreed to offset a proposed $947,000 increase in premiums by raising the employees' share of their monthly payments for health coverage by 5 percent.

Additionally, commissioners supported making county workers who now pay nothing for health insurance contribute a nominal $15 a month for their coverage.

The latter move affected 310 employees whose policies apply to themselves solely, entail basic services and carry higher deductibles than other health care plans offered by the county's contractor, Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

The 5 percent for those employees equated to what a single employee would pay each month for an upgraded, alternative plan on the county's plan, and represented the amount of the rate hike sought by Blue Cross/Blue Shield for 2011.

For workers with single coverage, the out-of-pocket rate will rise from about $30 a month to about $31.50; for those with family coverage, the cost will climb from $175 a month to $184.

There are almost 2,200 county employees in that category spread across all the constitutional offices, including the board and the offices of the sheriff, tax collector, property appraiser, elections supervisor and court clerk.

The discussion renewed a topic the board first took up last week, when Stone first suggested employees needed to pay more -- especially since it had been five years since the workers' rates were increased.

"How many years can you go along without passing it along? Why go down that road?" Stone asked his colleagues.

Risk Management Department director Sheri Wiley conceded employees needed to pay more eventually and said the health insurance contract would be renegotiated next year with Stone's objections in mind.

Chairwoman Barbara Fitos argued for the board to support this strategy, saying the proposed increase was modest and would buy the staff time to overhaul its health coverage.

Yet, Stone retorted, in a question to Wiley, "If it had been a 35 percent increase and $5 million, would you have come in with the same recommendation?"

No, she answered.

Commissioners will finalize the numbers at their regular meeting next week.

That discussion seemed to set the tone for the board's budget sessions, which will continue through most of this week and for one day next week.

Commissioners appeared to respond to budget director Michael Tomich's assessment of the near-term local economy and his forecast that the revenue numbers will be ugly by the time the 2012 budget talks start a year from now.

Taxable property values countywide have dropped 27 percent over the past three years. Property tax revenues have likewise dropped off by millions of dollars.

Accordingly, the commission has partly lived off of its "healthy reserves" to fund routine, recurring expenses, Tomich said.

And while the county can continue that for another year, Tomich said, relying on those banked funds will no longer be an option come 2012, unless the board wants to make deeper cuts or generate new revenues.

Tomich did relate some good news, observing that sales tax revenues have flat-lined -- a definite improvement over the sharp declines of years past, which correlated with the bottoming out of the construction industry.

"I don't know that we're at the bottom, but we're in the valley," Tomich told the commission. "I don't how wide the valley is or if there's another drop-off."

One other positive aspect -- for taxpayers -- is that the base property tax rate paid by all landowners across Marion County will remain constant in the new 2010-11 budget, as will assessments for fire, clean water and solid waste services.

That means the owner of a $100,000 home, after allowing for the state's homestead exemptions, will pay $390 next year -- the same as this year.

The new budget takes effect on Oct. 1.

In other topics taken up by the board on Monday, County Administrator Lee Niblock presented his office's budget, which included the elevation of his former budget watchdog, Bill Kauffman, from administrative support services bureau chief to assistant county administrator for public services.

That change started in March, when Niblock fired former assistant administrator Ken Griffin and gave Kauffman interim authority over Griffin's departments.

Niblock deleted Kauffman's job from his part of the budget, but Kauffman will retain the 6 percent salary increase -- which Niblock had once indicated was temporary -- he received in assuming Griffin's duties. That means the county will save about $117,000 instead of the roughly $143,000 officials said four months ago.

Kauffman, however, might be one of the fortunate ones.

In affirming its move toward austerity, commissioners said they would reject in the 2011 budget any request for an employee reclassification that included a pay raise, although the worker would keep the new job title.

Yet on another pay issue, the board noted that the budget for the County Attorney's Office -- whose spending jumped by about $195,000, or 44 percent, over the current year -- did not include the $165,000 a year salary for the new county attorney, Guy Minter, who is expected to start next month.

Minter's salary is not only about $18,500 more than that of acting County Attorney Jeff Fowler, who will retire at the end of the year, but also roughly $14,000 more than the $150,625 yearly the board appeared prepared to pay when it opted against privatizing legal services in February.

The spike in costs for the commission's in-house legal advice reflects an effort to subtract by addition.

The office will expand by two new lawyers, in addition to Minter, to handle certain specialties that are now outsourced to other lawyers.

One topic that involved significant discussion was Sheriff Ed Dean's proposal to take over a regional juvenile-detention facility in Ocala now operated by the state.

Dean offered to do so provided the County Commission credited him with the amount it would not have to pay the Department of Juvenile Justice, or DJJ, for that service.

That comes to about $1.9 million.

Dean has said he would be able to absorb the cost of housing the inmates, whose incarceration and care is now billed to the county by the state, within his existing budget.

Yet on Monday commissioners questioned who would be on the hook if the deal falls through.

Complicating matters was Clerk of the Circuit Court David Ellspermann's announcement that the state indicated it would continue to bill the county for two years, even though the DJJ would no longer run the facility.

"I can't write a check for that," said Ellspermann, adding that the agency's position might invite litigation.

The board said it would discuss the matter with Dean when he presents his budget on Wednesday.

The commission's review of the proposed budget continues today with more hearings on its own departments.

Contact Bill Thompson at 867-4117.

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