The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

Joplin Metro

Discussion

October 13, 2007

City Council to ponder employee benefits

By Debby Woodin

dwoodin@joplinglobe.com

Deciding which proposal to accept to provide insurance coverage for city employees is among the annual budget issues to be decided or discussed Monday night by the Joplin City Council.

The council will take up re-bids of health insurance for city employees at a 5 p.m. informal session scheduled in the council chambers instead of the usual conference room. The agenda notes that the informal meeting is being moved to accommodate viewers because of the amount of interest among city employees in the insurance bids.

The council last month, in a split vote, scrapped health-insurance bids solicited by an employee committee and voted to take new bids. Two council members in particular, Richard Russell and Phil Stinnett, said they could not tell whether the city was getting the best bid because numerous insurance companies bid a number of options.

The city’s finance director, Leslie Jones, will present the council with the new bids and recommendation by employees.

In a memo to council members for the upcoming meeting, Jones said that six insurance vendors submitted bids. Four were companies that had bid earlier and two were new bidders.

She again recommends a United Healthcare bid that will offer largely comparable coverage to city employees at a cost savings to the city of $268,000.

There are 232 city employees who choose family coverage and 168 employees who have single coverage under the city’s health plan, Jones reports.

At the earlier meeting where the insurance bids were rejected, Jones told the council that a 16-member committee of city employees was appointed to study health-insurance coverage in March because the city's current insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shield/Anthem, would raise the rates it charges the city by 13.7 percent next year. That would cost the city approximately $2.2 million for health and dental insurance.

Approximately 120 bids were received in the first round.

Work on pay and benefits for city employees will continue during the regular meeting at 6 p.m. The council will review bids for dental and life insurance and adopt a pay plan for the next fiscal year, which begins Nov. 1.

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