Dougherty risk management program a money-saver

Sept. 26--ALBANY -- Consultant Jim Britt took Dougherty County Commission Chairman Chris Cohilas' restaurant metaphor in reference to the county's risk management program Monday morning and turned it into an apt summary of the uniquely designed program.

Noting that the county had "put together an a la carte menu" of services provided by its risk management consulting team, Cohilas' remark was met with Britt's witty, "It's a great meal."

The county and its risk management team had reason to celebrate the program at the commission's work meeting as consultants Britt, Joe Zichettella and Scott Thomason highlighted benefits of the program created especially for the county. Perhaps most telling was Thomason's financial picture that showed, first, that the county had saved some $600,000 in risk claim costs over the last three years through the program and that the county's yearly savings over outsourcing the risk management services completely was $580,000.

"Job well done," Thomason concluded.

With Assistant County Administrator Mike McCoy, who was named Georgia Risk Manager of the Year last year, heading the county's risk management team, county officials have gradually built a risk program based on specific needs, adding consultant services through request for proposal bid processes.

"What we've been able to do is reduce spending, but not compromise coverage," McCoy told commissioners. "We have created a successful program unique to Dougherty County, one you won't hear of in Columbus, Valdosta or across the hall with the city of Albany."

The presentation by the risk management team followed an update by Thronateeska Heritage Center/Flint RiverQuarium Executive Director Tommy Gregors, who offered a rundown on both attractions' use of SPLOST VI funds. During his presentation, Gregors provided some upbeat financial news for the RiverQuarium.

"The RiverQuarium had net revenue of $992,000 in Fiscal Year 2016 and expenses around $950,000, a $41,000 surplus," Gregors said. "We had the highest attendance in five years, and the chillers that we installed as an emergency measure when we had a catastrophic failure are starting to pay off. We saved $5,000 on our electric bill the first month that we could measure the impact of the new chillers."

Gregors noted that the aquarium's budget had been reduced by $700,000 since 2010, as he and the attractions' board "cut as many areas as we can."

"Forty-four percent of our costs are for personnel and 35 percent for liability insurance and utilities," Gregors said. "Those three items use up almost 80 percent of our budget. I feel like we've got the things we can manage to a point of stability; we've utilized every efficiency we can. Now, we're going to focus on increasing revenue."

Following the work meeting, which included the showing of a video created by the local LeVee Studios highlighting projects that were completed utilizing city and county SPLOST funds, the commission went immediately into a special called meeting to consider a proposal to approve the county employee group health plan for 2017.

The board voted 7-0 to approve the proposal that calls for a slight increase in employee contributions to help account for projected cost increases over the year. The measure approved by the commission calls for funding of the employees' base plan to be an 82-18 percent cost split, with the county paying the larger percentage of the costs, and a 74-26 split for the more expensive, buy-up plan.

The measure also calls for no increase in employee contributions for the dental plan.

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