Heflin council approves extra health insurance plan for city workers

Jan. 11--HEFLIN -- The City Council added a supplement plan to the city's employee health insurance policy Tuesday, giving workers the option of extra coverage.

City employees must pay for the extra coverage. However, the plan gives workers more bang for their buck, letting them spend paycheck money on insurance premiums before taxes are deducted.

The plan includes extra coverage for cancer policies and long-term and short-term disability.

The council picked the plan through American Fidelity, which specializes in insurance plans for municipalities. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama provides the main worker health insurance coverage for the city.

Shane Smith, city clerk, said after the meeting that if city employees wanted to make use of the extra plan, they'd have to use their own money to buy coverage.

"No city money is used for this," Smith said. "It's 100 percent employee pay."

Also during the meeting, Smith announced the city collected about $127,000 in sales taxes in November, a 30 percent increase from the previous year.

"It's one of the best Novembers we've had in many years," Smith said.

Smith said the city worked with the Cleburne County Chamber of Commerce last year to promote more local shopping for the holiday season. Also, several new small boutique shops have opened in the city in the past year, which helped add to the higher sales tax collections.

Smith said he'd know how much sales tax the city collected in December in a few weeks.

Later in the meeting, Mayor Rudy Rooks commended the city fire, police and street departments for their work in preparing for and dealing with the ice storm over the weekend.

"We've learned a lot from these last few ice storms ... now we know what to do and take care of it," Rooks said.

Staff writer Patrick McCreless: 256-235-3561. On Twitter @PMcCreless_Star.

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