Dixon joins Intergovernmental Personnel Benefit Cooperative to control workers' health insurance costs

DIXON – The Dixon City Council authorized the acceptance of a contract Tuesday that allows the city to become a member of the Intergovernmental Personnel Benefit Cooperative, an agency designed to lower the cost of health insurance for city employees.

The IPBC was created under Illinois law specifically for cities and counties to pool the number of employees they have in order to get better insurance rates at the market, Dixon City Manager Danny Langloss told the council.

"We've been shopping, researching and pricing our health insurance," Langloss said. "By doing so, we've been able to keep this major expense under control."

In fiscal 2022, the city spent about $1.3 million for medical insurance for all city employees, according to Dixon's fiscal 2025 budget book. The city's budget hasn't been approved yet for fiscal 2025, but the proposed amount allocated for insurance is about $1.8 million across all departments, according to the budget book.

"The big thing is controlling the expense," Langloss said in an interview with Shaw Local. He added that it's not necessarily intended to save a certain amount of money to be used elsewhere, but to control the rapid cost increase.

The city's health insurance committee, representatives from all four city unions and city administration met with representatives from the IPBC, who looked at the current insurance plan, its history and made a proposal, Langloss told the council Tuesday.

Its current plan with Blue Cross Blue Shield is expected to increase the city's total health insurance premiums by 8%, which would cost the city about $2 million a year. By joining the IPBC the city would stay with Blue Cross Blue Shield, but its premiums would increase by just 1.6% this year. Then, in 2026, the increase would be the same as the average for the IPBC, which has been about 3.7% over the past several years, Langloss said.

The city of Rochelle has been using the IPBC since 2017. Since then, its cost for health insurance has gone up 8% over the span of seven years, Langloss said.

The council's authorizing the contract allows the city to get into the IPBC program.

"It is obviously beneficial when you look at the increases that could be possibly absorbed," Council member Mary Oros said Tuesday.

Its membership with IPBC will take effect Jan. 1, 2025, and it will remain on the same plan with Blue Cross Blue Shield. There will be no changes to employee benefits.

"They're able to take our identical plan and bring it in," Langloss said

Joining the IPBC also creates the possibility of introducing an employee wellness program.

"They will help us create one and possibly give incentives back to us," Dixon Finance Director Becky Leslie said in an interview with Shaw Local.

"A wellness program really is to help our employees to be health conscious," she said. "Doing the things that we can do to hopefully prevent major life events like a heart attack or diabetes."

"It has to do with, you know, working out, eating healthy and doing your regular exams," Langloss said.

It could be something as small as providing annual blood work for all employees or it could be having some kind of tracking app to award points or set goals for a certain amount of steps a day, Leslie said.

"It's something that we've kind of been exploring for a little while. And I think [the IPBC] could help us create a plan," she said.