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the Sheriff's Deputies, EMS and Public Works employees. This item should actually be identified as Holiday Pay. • The Temporary Personnel account decrease from $1.2 million to $890,000 is a result of the change in how the Long Term Care Program is administered in the Department of Social Services. The billing is now being handled by the providers directly with Medicaid. • It might be possible to achieve substantial savings by going with one insurance carrier, however, many variables must be factored into the final decision. Staff could reexamine this issue during the next year. The County Commissioners Association is pursuing a self-funded insurance pool intended to provide savings to participating counties. Staff will also stay abreast of developments regarding the Association's self-insurance program. Current insurance plans have shown estimates of no more than a 50 increase for the coming year which is the lowest increase in the last 6 years. Staff will find out how Wake County and Cary are progressing with their self-funded programs. Also, information will be solicited regarding which other North Carolina Counties reimburse employees who waive health insurance coverage. • County employees attend conferences directly related to their jobs, and, there are two basic kinds of conferences. The first type is specific to a task that the employee is required to perform. (For example, a Tax Assessor's Workshop at the Institute of Government.) The other type of conferences are usually hosted by state or national associations. Staff has reviewed the travel expenditure over the last 5 years. The overall County travel budget has increased approximately to each year. In response to the question about compensatory time for weekend travel, Commissioner Halkiotis suggested that a policy be instituted so that no overtime would be allowed for weekend travel to conferences. Compensatory time could be allowed in situations where employees are required to attend conferences over weekends. • The next item of discussion was telephone and voice mail cost. Voice mail is a part of the overall phone cost and is not a separate charge. Most of the telephone budget is charged back to each department for their portion of the system. The County has recently completed paying the last installment of the lease- purchase agreement for the phone system. • Postage is a significant expense. A sizable amount is generated in the tax assessor's and revenue collector's offices. The change in the way taxes for motor vehicles are billed has doubled the number of bills mailed. The Department of Social Services is also required to send out many monthly mailings. A $5,000 reduction in postage has been accomplished by the Department on Aging by having the Senior Times distributed as a supplement to the newspaper. The Personnel Department has eliminated some of the mailings to the applicants pool.