Minutes - 20021021 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Commissioner Halkiotis said that we were not able to do much for our employees this past year. He is concerned that 40% of employees are at salaries below $35,000. He thinks that we need to send a clear message to our employees that they are important and valued and we need to offer them a package that will help them. He supports doing something for our employees. Commissioner Carey said that we did not do anything for our employees this year and he recognizes that the Manager's recommendation attempts to insulate the employees from a pay cut. The trend in the industry is 20-30% for insurance renewals. He asked if we get good utilization rate data from the companies that we deal with. Elaine Holmes said that it is difficult to get data from the Trust and others. Commissioner Carey said that he supports the Manager's recommendation. Chair Jacobs said that he agrees with Commissioners Carey and Halkiotis and he does not want to see employees go backwards. He would like to see the numbers before 10:00p.m. tonight in terms of the costs. He would be supportive of this for fiscal year 2003 and hold employees harmless. He is also concerned with what is going to happen with Blue Cross/Blue Shield and he said that having multiple options is probably wise. Elaine Holmes said that these rates would be effective for the entire 2003 calendar year. There was a break at this time at 8:55 p.m. Elaine Holmes prepared a handout of the health insurance costs. The total additional costs would be $749,000 for the health insurance increases. Commissioner Gordon said that she agrees with this year but that we need to look seriously next time at the hospital deductibles, which are generally larger than the county's deductibles. She asked for clarification on the chart, and Elaine Holmes answered her questions. Commissioner Halkiotis said that they had done internal surveys of employees and asked why the 136 employees wanted CIGNA. Elaine Holmes said that they hear from the employees that it is because of the physician network available under CIGNA. She said that they tried hard to get a list of the physicians under CIGNA that employees were actually using so that they could compare it to Blue Cross. They were not able to get this information from CIGNA. John Link said that we need to look at this next year. Chair Jacobs said that employees enrolled adds up to 80 fewer employees than we have and Elaine Holmes said that there were about 45 vacant positions and 35 employees on the health insurance waiver option. A motion was made by Commissioner Halkiotis, seconded by Commissioner Carey to accept the Manager's recommendation to adopt option 1 — renew with Blue Care Plan 1 and Blue Options Plan 1 through the NCACC Trust and continue to offer CIGNA and temporarily increase the subsidy for dependent health insurance for 2003 to 52% based on Blue Care Plan to fully mitigate Blue Cross increase. VOTE: UNANIMOUS b. Classification and Pay Study Elaine Holmes said that this plan was supposed to be implemented in 2002-2003 and because of the fiscal restraints it was not implemented. They have completed a significant amount of the work. If the Board decides to pursue the study, they would complete the study and final reviews with department heads and employees and would complete the final report and present it to the Board for consideration. The study would