Holcomb sees rising insurance costs for employees
Lujan said the overage is not a budget violation and can be easily absorbed by the city's general fund. She explained that the overage occurred because one city employee moved from a single insurance plan to a family plan, another employee was hired who opted for a family plan, and a previous employee on a single plan was replaced by a new employee who opted for a family plan.
Lujan said the city's cost increases by about
The city's annual insurance costs have remained roughly level since at least 2012, ranging from more than
Councilman
"I just feel like if A and B are doing the same job, I think their benefits should be similar, too, because I think that goes into your total compensation," Rupp said, noting that the overage wouldn't "fly with an independent business."
When Mayor
"After sitting in this room and doing interviews for prospective employees, I can tell you that the benefits for working at the city is what draws people to public service," Lujan said. "If you start cutting those, coupled with the wages that we already pay that are lower, you're circumventing what you're trying to do. You're trying to attract those good employees here or keep good employees."
Councilman
"We were down employees," he said. "You put a cap on it at
"I wouldn't set a cap to the point where if we add an employee we're going to bust it," Rupp said.
"Well, that's pretty much what we did, though," Quint responded.
"We did," confirmed the other members of the council in unison.
Coinsurance rates for
"As a business owner, and that's what the city is, by law we have to provide them that insurance," Newman said. "It's a tough one. Our hands are kind of tied. Instead of capping it, I think we look at perhaps changing the percentages and putting a little more on the employee, if we're going to cap it. It's inflation. It's the cost of everything, and someone has to burden some of that cost. We're burdening more of that cost year over year as rates increase and we're keeping it at 90/10."
The council took no action on the matter.
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