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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCalled Commission Meeting October 31, 2017 CALLED MEETING COMMISSION CHAMBER October 31, 2017 Augusta Richmond County Commission convened at 11:00 a.m., Tuesday, October 31, 2017, the Honorable Hardie Davis, Jr., Mayor, presiding. PRESENT: Hons. Jefferson, Guilfoyle, Sias, Frantom, M. Williams, Davis, Fennoy, D. Williams, Hasan and Smith, members of Augusta Richmond County Commission. Mr. Mayor: We’ll call this meeting to order. The Chair recognizes Attorney MacKenzie. 1. LEGAL MEETING A. Pending and potential litigation B. Real estate C. Personnel Mr. MacKenzie: I would entertain a motion to go into an executive session to discuss pending and potential litigation, real estate and personnel. Mr. Fennoy: So move. Mr. D. Williams: Second. Mr. Mayor: I’ve got a motion and a second. Voting. Mr. Smith out. Motion carries 9-0. \[EXECUTIVE SESSION\] Mr. Mayor: We’ll come back to order. We’ve got some gifts from the Mayor’s Office. Hopefully you’ll enjoy the treats. There are no tricks, just treats. I’ll recognize Attorney MacKenzie. 2. Motion to authorize execution by the Mayor of the affidavit of compliance with Georgia’s Open Meeting Act. Mr. MacKenzie: I would entertain a motion to execute the closed meeting affidavit. Mr. Fennoy: So move. Mr. Frantom: Second. Mr. Mayor: Voting. Mr. Jefferson out. 1 Motion carries 9-0. Mr. Mayor: At this moment we’re going to hear a motion and the next order of business is the matter concerning health benefits. There was a budget workshop to further affirm that conversation that took place on last Friday. (inaudible) You’ll have a very presentation from Ms. Jackson and then we’ll ratify what you all discussed on last Friday. The Chair recognizes Attorney MacKenzie first. Mr. MacKenzie: I would entertain a motion to approve a settlement resolution for the Workers Compensation claims of Robert Seymore in the amount of $320,000 with Augusta’s contribution being approximately $267,000 and to amend the budget to transfer Augusta’s contribution from the Utilities fund to the Workers Compensation fund. Mr. Fennoy: So move. Mr. Hasan: Second. Mr. Mayor: A motion and a proper second. Voting. Mr. Jefferson out. Motion carries 9-0. Mr. Mayor: All right, thank you. The Chair recognizes Madam Administrator. Ms. Jackson: Thank you, sir. I will call your attention to the Administrative Services Committee agenda item #1 relates to approving changes to our Blue Cross major medical plan. This item should have appeared on the special Called meeting agenda for today. As you will recall from our discussion on Friday, we discussed the timeliness of being able to advise our employees of plan changes. We would like to provide an electronic notification to our employees by tomorrow that would give ADP, our private provider, sufficient time to make all of the changes within their system and give our HR Department time to set up open enrollment beginning the middle of this month. Those changes that would require your approval relate to what are considered to be material changes. Those plan changes include addition of deductibles for our plan. Currently we don’t have any deductibles. Those deductibles are outlined as an attachment to the agenda item that I referenced on Administrative Services number one. A deductible of $300 for the employee only plan, $600 for the employee plus one and $900 for the employee plus two and above. Next increasing the co-pay for a primary care physicians and specialists, currently $30 and $50 respectively increasing those to $40 and $60 respectively, and also increasing the co-pay for emergency room visits from the current $300 to $400. In addition in the section above there it talks about the proposed changes in premium amounts and that goes through every category for each type of plan that we have, what those changes would be. All of this is consistent with the information that we provided to you on Friday morning in our workshop. We do have Miss Kelly, our consultant, available, we can make her available by phone if you have any questions but I believe we had a pretty comprehensive discussion on Friday. If there are any questions, please advise. 2 Mr. Mayor: All right, again is there any debate about this matter? I think it’s time based on the timeline that we have of wanting to one, communicate to the employees by way of notice but as I understand it, Ms. Jackson, also open enrollment beginning tomorrow? Ms. Jackson: It doesn’t begin tomorrow. We’ll notify employees tomorrow with open th enrollment beginning at the middle of the month, I believe November 13. Mr. Mayor: Which will then carry through December 13, is that correct? Ms. Jackson: Yes. Mr. Mayor: Okay. All right, very well. All right, the Chair will recognize the st commissioner from the 1. Mr. Fennoy: Just for clarity, Mr. Mayor, this is a special called meeting item that we’re going to address right now? Ms. Jackson: That is correct. Mr. Fennoy: Motion to approve, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Hasan: Second. th Mr. Mayor: I’ve got a motion and a second from the commissioner from the 6, Ms. Bonner. All right, Commissioner Guilfoyle, is that your hand up? I’ll recognize the commissioner th from the 8. Mr. Guilfoyle: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Madam Administrator, this has nothing to do with the building of a new facility for the Wellness Program for our employees does it? Ms. Jackson: As part of our presentation on Friday we did discuss it but no, what you’re asked to approve today is those co-pays, deductibles and premium changes. We have put out an RFP for Wellness Center expansion. The result of that RFP will have to come before you in a separate agenda item. Mr. Guilfoyle: Would you take this in consideration when we go to that moment to vote on that? Some of the things I’m hearing as far as when people have to go to physicians and you don’t have an appointment they only accept four people that’s standing in line after 1:30 in the afternoon and if you’re the fifth person, you’ve either got to try to be there the next day or the following day. Something that I was enlightened on as well if we can look into this is that a lot of people, I asked an employee I said, “Why is people utilizing the emergency room which costs us, you know, $1200 more than going to a normal physician?” And she was actually telling me the reason why is because your primary care doctor at this time, if you go there and you need a specialist, let’s say a heart or any other type of specialist, that they don’t have the referral, they can’t give you a referral to another specialist. And that’s the reason why the employees are going to the emergency room because they’ll have direct referral. Can we find some kind of solution on 3 that? I know that the employee has to pay the $300 up front but I think if it’s that much important to them that they will get the specialist that they do desire because they cannot obtain it through their normal physician. That was just brought to me. I see certain people with eyes looking kind of funny but can we look into that when we do address that issue? Ms. Jackson: We can look into it, sir, but generally your primary care physician or the Wellness Center should be able to make a referral to a specialist. On your first question about the wait at the Wellness Center, that’s precisely why we want to expand the Wellness Center because we know right now they don’t have the capacity to see as many people who want to come in to be seen so that’s why our recommendation is to expand it. Mr. Guilfoyle: All right, thank you. th Mr. Mayor: All right, the Chair recognizes the commissioner from the 9. Mr. M. Williams: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Ms. Jackson, I’m in support but I guess my question would be if we vote and pass those increases, something that we have to do, is that because of the change, because I’m thinking about how that’s going to offset any increase we give the employees it’s going to be consumed with this vote we’re fixing to take now. Ms. Jackson: Sir, as we had discussed on Friday, for an employee only plan for instance, the per pay period adjustment is less than $5.00 so it is a relatively small amount across the board. I think we gave examples at different compensation levels of how much it would cost. I think most of the costs were less than $200 for the year for the increase in the plan so I understand that that’s a consideration but we tried to make these increases as minimal as possible. Also our employees have not had any increase in premiums since 2012 and the organization has been absorbing the increased cost over that time period as healthcare costs have escalated so that is the reason we felt it was important to make the recommendation at this time for a change. Mr. M. Williams: Well, I’m just putting it out there. I’m not opposed, I’m just thinking and you mentioned the employee only but most of our employees have a family associated with their insurance, not just themselves. There’s a few of us that’s just worried about the one but then most of us are considerate of their wife and at least two children if not more. So that changes all that so I just wanted to put it on the record. If it’s something we’ve got to do, then we have to do it but it’s kind of a catch 22 in my opinion. Ms. Jackson: Even, sir, employee plus two which actually over a thousand of our employees are employee only. We’ve got about 700 plus that are in the employee plus two range. At the recommended levels we’d be looking at an annual increase of $176. Mr. Mayor: Okay. We’ve got a motion and a proper second. The Chair recognizes the th commissioner from the 6 for a question. Mr. Hasan: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Madam Administrator, kind of looking at the PSO and the HMO, can you give me some clarity between the difference between those two? 4 Ms. Jackson: Yes, the, one of those is, is basically dealing with whether you’re in network or out of network. If you’ll look at the wellness rate for the HMO plan, the majority of our employees are in HMO plans. We only have a few employees that are at that higher level, the PSO plan. I think it’s less than 5% of our total contracts. Mr. Hasan: So it’s in network and out of network, that’s what you’re saying? Ms. Jackson: Um-huh. Mr. Hasan: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor: All right, voting. Motion carries 10-0. Mr. Mayor: All right, fantastic. Attorney MacKenzie, is there any other business before us? Mr. MacKenzie: That’s all I have. Mr. Mayor: All right, thank you. Committee meetings. \[MEETING ADJOURNED\] Lena J. Bonner Clerk of Commission CERTIFICATION: I, Lena J. Bonner, Clerk of Commission, hereby certify that the above is a true and correct copy of the minutes of the Called Meeting of the Augusta Richmond County Commission held on October 31, 2017. ________________________ Clerk of Commission 5