City Commission Workshop Meeting

APPROVED: 12/4/2014 City Hall City of Eustis, Florida 10 North Grove Street Post Office Drawer 68 Eustis, FL 32727-0068 Meeting Minutes - Final* City Commission Workshop Thursday, November 20, 2014 6:30PM City Hall CALL TO ORDER: Mayor Bob - 6:42 p.m. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF QUORUM AND PROPER NOTICE Present: 5 - Linda Bob; Albert Eckian; Michael Holland; Karen LeHeup-Smith; and Kress Muenzmay I. Workshop Item 14268 Insurance Cost Sharing Ann Isaacs, Human Resources Director, provided a review of the health plans offered to the employees, the cost to the City and employees and a list of pros and cons for each plan. She noted the history of the City's provision of health insurance and cited the previous benefits study that was performed. She also noted that five of the comparison cities offer a health clinic which provides free services to the employees and free prescriptions. She provided information from the national Kaiser Healthcare Survey. She then reviewed a summary of the Siver survey and commented on the City's previous consideration of offering a health clinic. Ms. Isaacs then reviewed the City's dental insurance which is offered free to the employees with a cost to the City of $67,085 for FY2014!15. She concluded with a review of the retiree insurance with 20 retirees participating. Ms. Isaacs then presented four alternatives for consideration of cost sharing as follows: 1) Maintain the current cost sharing arrangement for City health insurance plans; 2) Shift some of the City's costs in FY15116 by requiring employees to contribute towards the premium for single "base" plan coverage; 3) Require employees to contribute a percentage towards dental coverage; and 4) Require retirees to contribute more for the cost of their health insurance. II. Commission Discussion The Commission confirmed there is no difference between coverage for the regular employees and police and fire. They cited the need to determine how the City will address insurance needs going forward and questioned what the other cities experience has been who have the health clinics. Ms. Isaacs stated she was not sure if the other cities have had long enough time to determine any actual cost savings. The Commission discussed the School Board's experience with its health clinic, maintaining current benefits, the low amount of anticipated savings, the possible need to make a change in the future due to the City's financial status, and the viability of offering a health clinic by contracting with a local physician. Ms. Isaacs responded that to get the full benefit of a health clinic requires being self-insured which would require a long process to accomplish. She noted that PRM (Public Resource Management) indicated they would be willing to look at a premium discount for the City if a health clinic was implemented and they had good experience. Mr. Myers reported on the City's previous experience with being self-insured noting that the experience was good for a time but then cost the City a lot to get out of it. He cautioned against self-insuring stating the City would still have to purchase supplemental insurance. He explained City of Eustis, Florida Page 1 Printed on 1112612014 City Commission Workshop Meeting Minutes - Final November 20, 2014 the PRM premiums are set based on the amount of claims paid. He indicated that if the City had a clinic established and was able to use that to avoid costs, it might eventually result in a premium reduction. The Commission discussed the possibility of combining with another city that already has a working clinic, the pros and cons of utilizing a clinic, the possibility that the City may have to consider alternatives to reduce costs in the future, the increasing pension costs and changes to the actuarial tables, how much the City pays in premiums compared to other cities, the City's current low claims experience and the use of the employee insurance committee to help manage costs. III. Public Input -None IV. Commission Direction The Commission discussed retaining benefits as is while watching for increases, whether or not it would be a benefit to contract with local doctors for a reduced rate for City employees, the cost of turnover if high insurance costs become a disincentive, having the employee insurance committee research the cost for a high turnover rate, the total employee compensation package, waiting until FY16117 to consider any changes to benefits after implementing the third year of the salary increases, and considering benefits changes once the City salary levels have reached the 75th percentile. CONSENSUS: It was a consensus of the Commission to keep the employee health benefit the same for the time being but to keep track of any increasing costs. V. Adjournment-7:29p.m. City Clerk Mayor/Commissioner *These minutes reflect the actions taken and portions of the discussion during the meeting. To review the entire discussion concerning any agenda item, go to www.eustis.org and click on the video for the meeting in question. A DVD of the entire meeting or CD of the entire audio recording or verbatim transcript of the meeting can be obtained from the office of the City Clerk for a fee. City of Eustis, Florida Page2 Printed on 1112612014