Entities turn to Effingham County for help in providing services, benefits

EFFINGHAM — Entities sought the help of Effingham County officials this week in keeping public transportation running in other counties and providing health insurance to village employees.

Effingham County Board member Jeremy Deters presented the insurance proposal during the board’s Administrative Committee meeting on Monday after he was approached by village officials from Teutopolis and spoke with those from Dieterich.

“The smaller government entities in the county are having issues providing health insurance for their full-time employees,” he said.

He noted other counties in the state offer an umbrella policy for smaller municipalities to join, with the municipalities paying their portion of the cost.

“What we’re proposing here is to create this blanket policy for Effingham County as a whole to allow the smaller government entities to sign on to the collective insurance that we have,” he said, adding that it includes townships.

“The good part of that would be, the more people we bring on, the lower our premiums could get. And I don’t think that there would be any additional cost to the county as well,” he added.

The county’s health insurance provider, Hope Trust, has done that in Jasper County, where townships joined through an intergovernmental agreement.

“It’s worked out just fine,” said representative Brent Williamson.

However, Williamson cautioned that Hope Trust wants what will work best for Effingham County. He recommended the village employees fill out health applications to help assess their plan performance, so the county isn’t taking on undue risk.

“The last thing I want to do is bring eight or 10 people onto your plan if three or four are sick,” he said, pointing out such a scenario would increase the county’s risk.

Teutopolis Village Clerk Amy Vahling said the village hasn’t had major claims under its policy. The village has five employees and is hiring two new ones. While Vahling noted their current insurance provider has been great, the rates are “really expensive” for a village of its size.

Effingham County Board Chairman Joshua Douthit voiced two concerns he has about bringing other municipalities onto the county’s health insurance plan.

“No. 1, if we decide to go away from Hope Trust, you guys are on your own again. You’d be back to where you are now. So you’re relying on us to stay on Hope Trust,” he told Vahling. “No. 2, I don’t like the extra risk to the county adding multiple other entities. We don’t control policy or procedure in T-town village. We don’t control things in any townships. I know some of that would fall under workers’ compensation if they were to get hurt, and maybe not necessarily health insurance. But I do see that there could be an incident where an expectation that the county has, the village of T-town does not, or some township does not for their employees and they could get injured or hurt where they would seek claims. We would take the brunt of that.”

Douthit then asked if the county would be graded overall with all claims, not just county claims. Williamson said that would be correct.

“I think the risk is too big. And then there’s that caveat that they’re relying completely on us for this service,” added Douthit.

Vahling said the village has to seek bids for health insurance every year anyway.

“It’s just getting harder and harder. The last two years has been almost impossible to get bids because we’re so small,” she said.

County Board member Tim Ellis suggested setting clear expectations that the county can end the health insurance agreement at any time.

“I’m not necessarily opposed to it if we make those villages aware that this could happen at any time,” he said. “They’re taking the risk.”

Effingham County Treasurer Deb Ruholl asked Vahling if Teutopolis could join other villages to get their own policy instead of relying on the county.

Vahling noted that each county village has few full-time employees. So, they would still lack the 50 workers needed to enroll in Hope Trust.

Williamson suggested finishing the health applications first. This way, Hope Trust can review them and see if the proposal is workable for the county. He said Hope Trust would send a QR code to each village. He added the application takes about 5 minutes and each village would be responsible for having their employees complete it.

“Give our clinical team an opportunity to go through and take a look and see if there are any concerns, either based on health care or medication costs, that they see that are out of line. And then we could address that at that point,” he said.

The county will send a letter to each village and township to see if others are interested in participating.

Meanwhile, CEFS is proposing to incorporate its public transportation program in Shelby and other counties into Effingham County’s, beginning July 1, which is the start of the state’s fiscal year.

Effingham County is the grantee for Illinois Department of Transportation funding to provide rural public transportation in Effingham County.

Likewise, Shelby County is the grantee for funding services in that county. While Effingham only serves its own jurisdiction, Shelby County is also the grantee for Moultrie, Christian, Montgomery, Clay and Fayette counties.

CEFS Chief Executive Officer Kevin Bushur informed the committee that Shelby County no longer has the capacity to serve as the grantee, citing late audits that have placed the county on the state’s stop-payment list.

“That’s causing issues with getting the money for our services that we’re providing. They don’t want the other five counties to lose out on public transportation,” said Bushur.

Bushur said the benefits of combining all the counties would be Effingham County would own all the buses from the six other counties, as well as the maintenance facility in Shelby County. That would then enable Effingham County to use the buses from the other counties, which CEFS currently cannot do.

Program Director Beth Beck-Marts told committee members that was the first thought she had when she heard recent tornado sirens.

“What if the Agracel facility got hit by a tornado and we lost all the vehicles? We wouldn’t be able to operate because we couldn’t use theirs. These would be all pooled resources. I could pull what I needed for wherever,” she said.

Douthit asked if the same situation in another county would harm services in Effingham County.

“I will tell you I have never done anything that would be detrimental to another county. I pull resources, and I move resources all the time, but I would never move anything that is going to limit another county,” said Beck-Marts.

Douthit asked if it can be stated somewhere that, no matter what happens, Effingham County will have a specific number of buses and E-Trax will not be interrupted. Bushur said he would be open to reviewing language to make those guarantees part of the contract.

“Operationally, not much is going to change at all,” assured Beck-Marts.

Bushur said the people he has spoken with in the other six counties all support Effingham County as the grantee.

Douthit said he wants to allow the public a chance to comment on the proposal, which will also be discussed at the County Board meeting on Monday.

“Because this is a big step for us to take on the responsibility of six other counties,” he said. “I wanna make sure members of the public could attend and have input.”

The Effingham County Board meets Monday, May 18, at 4 p.m. on the third floor of the Effingham County Office Building in downtown Effingham.

© 2026 the Effingham Daily News (Effingham, Ill.). Visit www.effinghamdailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.