City employees in good hands with Black handling insurance

Some people have a hard time keeping track of everyone in their family. What if the family had 159 to 220 members and all of them depend on one person to handle their paperwork?

Sounds almost impossible without assistance, right? Well don?t tell Fredia Black that because she will argue the point.

Black is the human resource administrator for the city of McMinnville. She has worked for the city for six years. Four years of that has been in her current position.

Black handles all the insurance requirements for city employees. Each year, every employee can sign up for insurance. Black must make sure the proper paperwork gets to each employee and then to the insurance agency.

Another end-of-the-year ritual is filing papers to keep each employee current and correct with the federal government. She has to verify their deductions and any changes that need to be made for the upcoming year.

Those jobs are just yearly, Black also has monthly jobs that have to be correctly completed.

The city offers health, dental, vision, short-term disability, whole life, term life, cancer and a reimbursement plan to its employees and it is Black?s responsibility to handle all the billing for those. She must verify with payroll each month that what was deducted from paychecks matches what employees are supposed to pay.

If an accident happens, Black handles all worker?s comp claims. She makes sure an injured employee gets the proper care by arranging the doctor and handling all the bills.

All the permanent personal files are kept in her office. Because of this, she is always filing. As each piece of paper, for whatever necessary function, is completed it has to be placed their an employees permanent file.

?I?m paperwork queen sometimes,? said Black. ?Everybody has to have their own personnel file and I have to make sure each has what they need when they start working for the city and during their employment with the city.?

As if that wasn?t enough, she advertises all the job openings for the city and all r?sum?s and applications go through her office. Although she must make sure everything goes through the right channels and she must give her OK for their placement, the last say for hiring isn?t hers.

The city also has pre-employment, random and post-accident drug screening for its employees. These go through Black?s office.

Tired yet? Black also makes sure all employees get the required training, including safety training, sexual harassment training, drug training, Title 6 training and yearly employee orientation. She makes sure all employees have their ID badges, she?s secretary of the Safety Council and a member of the Tennessee Personnel Management Association.

With all Black has to do, one would think the perks to her job must be great. Well, they are. She has two very important perks:

?I love my job,? said Black. ?Everyone at city hall is wonderful. The girls I work with are great. We are all cross-trained and we depend on each other. We have a really good group of city employees.?

The last perk, but not least, her children Hunter, 7, and Hayden, 3, get a kick out of visiting their mom in her office at city hall.