Commissioners to continue debating health insurance changes

The county commissioners today are expected to take back up discussions of some possible major changes to employee healthcare.

Amid upset two weeks ago regarding how members of the county council went about approving the 2022 spending plan, commissioners opted to table their talks of possible health insurance changes in an effort to more thoroughly study the budget.

County Clerk David Shelton two weeks ago called out county elected officials for what he - and others -considered to be a debacle in terms of employee pay raises and a subsequent proposal to raise health insurance costs.

He challenged them to "identify and address" whatever breakdown in communication led to the unrest regarding the 2022 budget.

The commissioners, too, said they agreed that the announcement of pay raises last month - and the confusion that followed as to how that raise would possibly coincide with an increase in health insurance premiums - was bungled.

"You don't give a pay raise and take it right back," commissioner T.J. Brink said on Monday. "You have to be up front and honest with people, and we weren't given an opportunity to do that."

Per a spending plan approved by the county council last month, most county employees will see a $2,700 pay raise next year.

Most people in attendance at that meeting, however, weren't aware that the budget for 2022 had been approved at all since it was lumped in with the much smaller budgets of three county fire districts; its details weren't discussed publicly at all, and the commissioners say they weren't privy to some of its last-minute details.

Most employees, too, didn't know they'd received a raise until they read it in media reports the next day.

But only part of that annual raise - or $1,400 - is a traditional raise, and the rest, or $1,300, is meant to serve as "an insurance offset," members of the county council have said.

The plan for a single employee has, for years, cost only $1 per year, something commission president Trent Hinkle has said is "unheard of" in government and the private sector alike.

As part of the proposal put forth by the commissioners, county employees would begin paying $50 per paycheck toward the cost of their health insurance premiums. Deductibles would increase from $650 up to $1,000, and co-pay would increase from $10 up to $40 per visit.

Out of pocket maximum would go from $1,650 up to $3,000.

The $50 per pay check for 2022 equates to the $1,300 offset included in their pay raises for next year; it's a deal the county council and the commissioners have reportedly been working on for months, although the commissioners have indicated there was some kind of breakdown in communication between the two entities, hence their confusion and the lack of a public announcement on health insurance coverage.

Some county council members, too, have seemed just as confused that there was confusion at all, leaving county employees to wonder where it went wrong.

As such, Brink said he's inclined to wait a year, allowing the county to absorb the additional cost.

"We do have to change our health insurance, but this whole thing was a fiasco," he said. "So my opinion is to just continue coverage the way it is now.

"I understand that a $1 a year is no longer feasible, but let's revisit it next year, after we can tell employees, up front, that this is what we're doing."

Hinkle, however, said he doesn't see that as an option and indicates that, even if there was a breakdown in communication amongst county elected officials toward the end, health insurance changes and a subsequent pay raise to help offset that for employees was all part of the plan.

"I'm not feeling hesitant at all," he said. "I'm hopeful we can talk about it and have a vote.

"If we don't change the insurance plan, it's going to cost the county a whole lot of money, and the council won't be happy about it because they were thinking we would approve a change, which is why they gave the raise and insurance offset."

In short, it will cost the county too much to offer such hefty raises and do nothing to lessen the ever-increasing burden of health insurance costs to the county.

"I don't see how we, the county, can go forward with those two raises and not change insurance," he said. "It's unthinkable to me.

"We'll have to change it at some point."

Commissioner Kellie Streeter, two weeks ago, said the raises "came as a surprise" and that she couldn't make a decision on the health insurance adjustments until she "gained some clarity" in studying the budget.

On Monday, Streeter said she had talked to a handful of department heads in the last two weeks but was still waiting on some clarification on the budget.

She said she looked forward to having that discussion in public tonight.

"I haven't made my decision yet," she said. "We, as commissioners, need to talk about it further, and I like to use a public forum to do that.

"I anticipate that, after some of the conversations I've had and the numbers I've looked at so far, that we'll be able to figure out the changes we need to make to the final (health insurance) plan."

The commissioners will meet at 6 p.m. tonight at the Pantheon, 428 Main St.