Raleigh County to absorb PEIA increases for employees [The Register-Herald, Beckley, W.Va.]

Jun. 13—Savings made on Raleigh County's jail bill will be used to pay for a premium increase to county employees' health insurance.

For the 2023-24 fiscal year, which runs from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, Raleigh County Commission President Dave Tolliver said premium increases for the 177 county employees enrolled in the Public Employees Insurance Agency (PEIA) are expected to cost the county an additional $325,000 for the year.

This time last week, commissioners met with elected officials to discuss how to cover the additional costs and whether they would be passed on to employees, whether the county would take on the burden entirely or whether increased costs would be covered partly by both.

Had the cost been absorbed solely by county employees, they would have been out an additional $1,800 per year for insurance premiums.

However, with the county jail bill coming in at roughly $900,000 under budget, commissioners have instead decided to put these savings toward the PEIA premium increases.

Tolliver made the announcement during a staff meeting Tuesday in commission chambers.

The news was met with a round of applause by employees and several of the county's elected officials who were also present.

Commissioners as well as other employees credit the work of Raleigh County Prosecuting Attorney Ben Hatfield as the reason the county can afford to absorb the PEIA premium increases for employees.

During a staff meeting last week, Hatfield offered the solution of using savings from the jail bill to offset PEIA increases for employees.

In order to make this change official, commissioners will have to approve a budget revision when the new fiscal year starts on July 1.

The budget revision will include the decrease in the allotted funds for the jail bill from $2.25 million to $1.9 million. Those funds will then be moved into the line item for the county contribution for PEIA.

Hatfield, who was not present at Tuesday's staff meeting but spoke with The Register-Herald on the phone, said he can't take all the credit for the savings on the jail bill.

"It's been a collaborative effort," he said.

Hatfield said he has a weekly meeting with Steve Davis, the Southern Regional Jail liaison for the Raleigh County Commission; Raleigh County Circuit Judge H.L. Kirkpatrick; Jeff Shumate, a special investigator for the Raleigh County Prosecuting Attorney's Office; Morgan Spolarich, a Raleigh County assistant prosecuting attorney; Bart Houck, an intelligence analyst; and Stacy Fragile, the chief public defender for Raleigh County.

During these meetings, Hatfield said one of the main things they look at is the people who have been incarcerated in Southern Regional Jail the longest on charges that have yet to be tried.

"And what we're looking to do is not do anything differently, not decrease anyone's sentences, but it's a form of triage," he said. "Let's see if we can get those cases tried sooner because there is an exponential cost to the county of just letting those cases set in Southern Regional Jail in the pretrial phase."

Once a defendant pleads guilty or is convicted, Hatfield said the cost for that person's stay in the regional jail is transferred to the state.

"We're just taking the cost from the county and transferring it to the state government who has exponentially more money than the county, because the state government picks up the tab once someone is convicted," he said.

Through this method, Hatfield said they have been able to consistently decrease the jail bill each year.

When Hatfield first took office in 2021, he said the county allocated $2.5 million for the jail bill. For the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, Hatfield said the county is on track to spend about $1.35 million on its jail bill.

Having seen consistent savings since he took office, Hatfield said he was confident in his recommendation to the county to lessen its allocation for the jail bill and help save county employees money on their insurance premiums.

"We have been consistently hitting it and by consistently hitting it, I'm talking shattering that $2.25 million (allocated for the jail bill)," he said. "So we just know that it's not a projection, it's a virtual guarantee that we're going to be able to come in under budget to offset these costs."

Hatfield said he feels confident in the guarantee even though the legislature approved per diem cost increases for counties for regional jail inmates.

With those increases figured in, Hatfield said it will only amount to a $10,000 increase for the county because of all the other cost-saving measures they've implemented.

Although this is a fix the county can absorb this time around, it may not be a sustainable solution if PEIA premiums continue to rise.

Tolliver said the county will need to debate the same question next year when premium costs will likely go up again.

"County employees will not have an increase in their PEIA insurance for (next) fiscal year. Next year, it will be addressed, and we'll make a decision July 2024," he said.

Another side effect to the way the county is choosing to absorb increases to employee PEIA premiums is that there will be less money in the county's coffers in the future. Instead of being able to transfer the money saved on the jail bill into the county carry-over funds, those funds will instead have to be allocated for PEIA.

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