County employees to receive benefit package
|
The budget will include the 5-cent tax increase requested by the Education Department, but with some judicious management of the current fund balances in other departments, will require no further tax increase to fund the benefit package.
The plan began to take shape in Monday’s meeting, the first of three meetings Budget and Finance held this week to discuss the 2002-2003 budget.
The committee, chaired by outgoing commissioner Swanson Bennett, first reviewed all the budgets as presented, including the General Fund, Ambulance Service Fund, Highway/Public Works Fund, Debt Service Fund, Solid Waste/Sanitation Fund, Drug Control Fund, and the Education budget which included the School General Purpose Fund, School Federal Projects Fund and the School Central Cafeteria Fund.
All of these funds were approved with minimal discussion or change.
The committee then began work on a situation that has concerned it since the beginning of budget talks, the plight of the county’s employees in the face of rising health insurance costs.
Commissioner Bennett discussed the issue of training employees at the county’s expense and then losing them to other counties, or even to local city government, because the county doesn’t have a competitive wage and benefit package.
Particularly affected has been county law enforcement, where the turnover has been especially high with at least one deputy moving to the city due to better benefits and others moving to neighboring counties for essentially the same wage, but much lower health insurance premiums.
In addition, though the turnover has been low in the last three years, at least one Emergency Management employee has left for similar reasons after having been trained in Warren County.
Other departments have reported higher turnover rates as well.
One of the main reasons cited for these moves is the rising cost of health insurance. As reported earlier, if the state implements an estimated 25-percent increase in premiums, and it could turn out to be more, a county employee’s share of the premium would increase from $100 to $170 per month for the single plan, and from $510 to $682 per month for the family plan.
Meanwhile, McMinnville city employees pay $17 per month for the single plan, and $98 per month for the family plan for the same coverage, and the city pays the rest of the premium. Some neighboring counties offer similar rates, making it attractive to seek employment there even while still living in Warren County.
The result of this disparity has been a steady decrease in employee morale.
“I’ve been here a long time,” said Assistant Director of Accounts & Payroll Officer Melanie Lanier, “I’ve been here 13 years, and this year I think employee morale is down more than in any year since I’ve been here.”
Even to the point of employees coming in to the Director of Accounts office to express their concerns personally.
“They’re really coming in a lot right now,” said Lanier.
“Nearly on a daily basis,” added Director of Accounts Linda Hillis.
The Budget and Finance committee made a commitment early on in budget preparation to make an effort to close this gap without an accompanying tax increase.
Realizing there is no one solution benefiting all employees, Budget and Finance asked Hillis to put the numbers together for a plan that includes three of the solutions suggested and discussed in earlier meetings.
The first point of the plan is to provide a life insurance policy for all full-time county employees which will be paid by the county. The cost for this coverage would be $9,500 per year.
The second point is for the county to fully fund county employees retirement which is currently 5 percent of their total salary. This would essentially be equivalent to a 5-percent raise, and would affect all full-time county employees, not just those who are enrolled in the county’s insurance plan. The cost to the county for this change would be $209,170 per year.
This will also bring county employee into parity with Education Department employees whose retirement is already fully funded.
The third point is to increase the county’s contribution to county employee insurance premiums by $50 per month which will offset, though not totally cover, the 25-percent increase from the state for the single plan. The cost for this increase would be $63,600 per year.
To offset the cost of this plan and avoid a tax increase, the departmental budgets for employee pay increases will be held to 3 percent over last year’s budget for all departments.
However, with the 5-percent retirement funding this would amount to a more significant total increase in take-home pay for county employees in 2002-2003, as well as the other benefits the plan provides.
The plan will be published in the Southern Standard by Aug. 16, and presented to the full commission for a vote at its meeting on Aug. 26.