Huntingburg council members receive benefits under Affordable Care Act
Under a new ordinance regarding insurance benefits, the Huntingburg Common Council will have access to the city’s group insurance plan for the same cost as full time employees.
Insurance has been offered to council members in the past but at 100 percent of the cost — $552.78 monthly — of the premiums. Under the new plan, council members can pay $4.50 biweekly for coverage for just themselves, $28.50 biweekly for a council member and their dependent, $32.oo biweekly for a council member and their spouse, or $47.00 biweekly for a family plan.
According to City Attorney Phil Schneider and Risk Management/Safety Director Don Foerster, under the new guidelines of the Affordable Care Act the city can identify certain types of employees or appointments to be offered insurance. In regards to the common council members, they fall under a group identified as elected officials and are included with the mayor and clerk/treasurer.
Although the mayor and clerk/treasurer are elected officials, they work for the city on a full time basis and are considered accordingly regarding insurance benefits. With the new regulations, the city could not designate those two offices differently than the common council offices.
The quandary the city faced in designating the elected officials eligibility for insurance benefits was based on whether or not to make it necessary for the council members (or elected officials) to track their hours. Under federal law, any employee who works 30 or more hours per week on average through a designated evaluation period is eligible for benefits through their employer.
This is easily tracked for the mayor and clerk/treasurer, but as Councilwoman Amy Lehr pointed out during the meeting, council members would find it difficult to track hours. “I get stopped at grocery stores. I get stopped at the gas station. I get people that come into my work. I punch out at my work and go take care of [council] business. I get phone calls at work and I get phone calls at home,” she said. “How do you document that? How do you break it down?”
Councilwoman Linda Summers stated she felt the council members should just be designated to receive benefits by their status as elected officials.
Lehr also stated by allowing council members to participate in the city’s group policy at the participant rates, they are ensuring future leaders will seek positions on the council.
Another group affected by the new ordinance is the city’s volunteer firefighters. Under Huntingburg ordinance, the volunteer firefighters are considered city employees although they are only paid when they respond to fires or emergencies. As employees they have been eligible for insurance benefits through the city but would have to pay 100 percent of the premiums.
Under the new regulations, volunteer firefighters are now eligible for benefits with the caveat they must must be offered insurance by the city at the new participating contribution rates if they work an average of 30 hours a week for a year. before being eligible for the new participating contributions rates.
Elected officials, the city attorney, and employees will be eligible for the new insurance rates beginning January 1st, 2014.
The insurance is expected to cost the city about $6,600 per employee per year.
Along with the new ordinance under the Affordable Care Act, the council also approved increasing the amounts employees paid for participating contributions to the group health plan. Single employees will now pay $3.80 to $4.50, full time employees with a child will increase from $27.28 to $28.50, an employee and spouse will increase from $30.46 to $32.oo, a family will increase from $44.98 to $47.00 a week paid biweekly.
The rates have not been raised for at least 12 years according to Foerster and the city is considering future increases up to the allowable limit set by the Affordable Care Act. That rate is established by assessing the combined income of the city’s lowest paid employee and his/her spouse. The maximum amount the rest of the employees, elected officials and appointments pay cannot exceed 9.5 percent of that individual’s combined yearly income.
According to Foerster, the Affordable Care Act has no stipulations to continue coverage of employees’ spouses but the city plans on continuing the practice into the foreseeable future unless the federal government stipulates spouses must go on the insurance exchange.
The city attorney appointment is also offered insurance benefits. Under the previous ordinance, the current city attorney Phil Schneider, paid 25 percent of the premiums. He will now be eligible for the same benefits as the employees and council.[hr]
The council also took the following actions at the meeting:
Heard from Energy Superintendent John Reutepohler who stated the Energy Utility have been concentrating on maintenance over the past month due to the weather. The electric department removed aluminum lines that were no longer in use on South Chestnut Street.
The gas department completed the testing of the Midwestern Gas Main but the state is requiring further pressure testing on the pipe used for the main to determine its top pressure allowance.
Heard that a group was interested in removing the gas from the city’s decommissioned gas storage field. No details were available other than the speculation that the group would take about 200 days to complete the process of removing the gas and closing the wellheads.
Reutepohler met with a representative with Craftsman Construction to begin to examine the old gas department garage to create plans to turn it into a county ambulance garage and office. They will also complete plans for a new construction building of various designs to give the city several choices in moving forward with providing a better space to house the ambulance crews that are on duty 24/7. Last month the city committed to the project.
The council heard Todd Williams’, the new Water Superintendent, first water utility report. He stated he was very impressed with the city’s dedication to its employees.
Williams told the council that the recent water main break on Fourth Street spilled about 200,000 gallons of water due to problems with the shutoff valves.
The council approved $6,700 for repairs to a generator at the Huntingburg Water Treatment Facility.
The council also approved all council appointments.
giving part time elected officials insurance makes sure those who seek the position only do it for the insurance. It has zip to do with future leaders. Cronyism, pure and simple. Note they gave themselves insurance. Any cost figure presented on how much the taxpayer has to cover for part time (and should have their own insurance anyway) elected officials?
During the election last year one elected official, running for re-election, only did it for the health insurance. Boom goes her logic…
Amen to both of your threads, pure and simple. What in the —- is going on here? No wonder the council approved an increase in the insurance premiums for city employees for the first time in over a decade – to help pay for their own newly awarded insurance that I’m sure they knew was in the works. Mind you this is the very council that “struggled” (agonized, I’m sure) to give themselves a 2 percent raise while only approving 1 percent for the employees – in part to help attract future candidates to the council (as so-stated by a council member on the record a month or two ago). Hmmm – do you detect a common thread here?
We’re assuming these part-time officials have full-time employers that offer insurance to their employees. There are individuals still working without this umbrella. Possibly these officials fall into this category and are seeking health care elsewhere. (We can safely exclude Phil Schneider.) Notably, it is these employers who oppose the Affordable Care Act, oppose Medicaid, but depending on their age, are O.K. with Medicare. Ironically, it is still paid for by the tax payer, any way you cut it.
The employers opposing the ACA is correct and this is where ObamaCare backfired from the beginning – beyond of course the socialistic government mandate of the entire issue – plus this is a major point that is being overlooked by all the subsequent problems with the plan, the website, etc. Rather than stepping up and offering insurance to the new definition of full-time employees – those working 30 or more hours – employers of more than 50 employees en mass cut employees hours – translated, INCOME – so they wouldn’t have to offer (pay for) the employees insurance. As for the Huntingburg council, can’t assume as some are retired and or part-time and or others have plans that are no doubt less than or inferior to the city’s plan. And why can you “safely exclude Phil Schneider”…as if a reference to his affluence or ? Moreover, council members change and where you may only have two or three taking the insurance now – assuming this ordinance isn’t rescinded or modified – likely it will be all five in the future by the reasoning of a couple of current council members: that the city owes this just because of their VIP status, plus that it’s somehow a necessary incentive to attract future council candidates (same reasoning for approving themselves a 2 percent raise). Bunk.
Interesting. Mr. Schneider likely has insurance in place, excluding him from Adrian’s comment regarding officials seeking position for insurance.
No doubt there are problems, but what are your suggestions for fixing “ObamaCare?” Bunk??
Being stopped in public venues is the responsibility one assumes when deciding to participate in public office.
Note that the Volunteer Fire Fighters are now required, not just eligible per the article, to have ACA health care and pay for it as well. What if they have coverage under their full time employer or parents already? What is their rate of pay for “volunteers” when they respond to an emergency or fire and when does the time start and stop for accountability of hours worked? If Council members payed $558.72 montly for the insurance that was offered to them in the past, how much is the city now paying so they will only have to pay a maximum of $47.00 bi-weekly for a family plan (approximately $1,222.00 per year)? Increases in the costs of insurance appear to be neglagible as reported in the article but how much, if any, is being subsidized by the City? At a time when many are out of work, government needs to be more mindful of how money is spent to maintain the safety and community infrastructure, not lining the pockets of elected offcials. One of the main purposes of an elected official is to represent and reflect the will of the people…
According to Don Foerster, the cost of the insurance plan premiums are about $6,600 per employee per year.
The way I read it, it ‘s the $558.72 less the $47 that yields the city-paid portion – roughly rounded to $500 per member per month per year, or $6,000 annually per member which is pretty close to what city man Don Forster indicated ($6,600) in the update.
The way I understand this totally confusing ACA debacle – and I’m far from an expert so may be wrong – is that the firefighters are only required to be offered insurance IF they qualify by working 30 hours or more per week, and that’s the issue about tracking hours. With all respect for their service, etc, seems that it would be pretty hard to document 30-plus hours per week and same for the council, and likely why the protest of doing so by the council member(s) – the delay plus not meeting the requirement. If this is correct, can the city legitimately or legally exclude or overlook the hours aspect and just provide the insurance, regardless? Maybe so. Should they?
You may be interested in this article from FactCheck.org regarding the volunteer firefighters ->
http://www.factcheck.org/2013/12/does-aca-cover-volunteer-firefighters/
With over approximately 20,000 volunteer departments in the country there is a bi-partisan effort in Congress to ensure that emergency services volunteers are not counted as full-time employees under the employer mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act. This would eliminate the work hours conundrum.
It’s going to be too expensive to live in Huntingburg area due to very high taxes. Huntingburg already has the highest tax base per dollar per per person then anywhere in the county. Give it time our taxes will go up again.