City to consider cap on health insurance
By KALEY CONNER
With the cost of health insurance coverage rising, the Hays City Commission will be asked to limit the amount it contributes to insurance for city employees.
At its 6:30 p.m. meeting Thursday, the commission will consider capping the city's contribution to health insurance premiums at $9,500 per employee, beginning in 2011.
"From a practical standpoint, when your average increase is 17 to 18 percent a year and the citizens are being taxed for that, but yet your property values are increasing 2 percent to 3 percent a year, at some point it becomes uneconomical for the city to keep absorbing all those increases," City Manager Toby Dougherty said.
For 2010, the city was presented with a 44.5-percent increase in health insurance costs from its current provider, Preferred Health Systems.
The commission will consider contracting with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas, which has offered a full insurance policy with a cost increase of 16.7 percent.
City staff budgeted for a 9-percent increase, meaning this policy would cost 7.7 percent more than planned. The total cost of insurance per employee would be $8,795.
Dougherty said the city also is establishing an employee wage and benefit committee, which will make recommendations regarding health insurance issues. This group will convene in January.
Other agenda items include:
* An ordinance repealing the city's legislation regulating solicitors and peddlers.
* An agreement for engineering services related to sanitary sewer services at the sports complex site.
* Approval of an updated master plan for Hays Regional Airport.
* The purchase of eight new bleachers for Stramel and Glassman ball fields, for a total cost of about $21,200.
* Changes to the city's garbage collection and disposal ordinance.
* A loan agreement and award of bid for a stormwater quality improvement project at Skyline Draw. The city received grant funding for the project through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.