21 November 2006 Dearborn County Commissioner Meeting Notes

21 November 2006 Dearborn County Commissioner Meeting Notes

Present: Hughes, President, and Fox
Also present: Pickens, Auditor, Ewbank, Attorney, and Messmore, Administrator.
Absent: Benning

No uniformed police officer was present at the side table although several were present for the first item on the agenda.

Commissioner-elect Ralph Thompson was in the audience.

1. Bonnie Shepherd- county employee spokesperson for a petition of almost 90 employees requesting the county reconsider the health insurance cost increases. She read a prepared statement with 9 questions concerning why the increase, how many proposals were received, employee education to keep costs down, other revenues possibly available to carry the increase, the annual cost to keep the present plan, and why family doctors couldn’t do the blood tests required to be part of the wellness program to keep costs down.
They respectfully wanted to be included in future decisions of this type; they wanted three tiers of plans, single, family, and 2-person household.
Some dept. heads objected to employees standing up and objecting (Pickens later said this was in reference to his dept- where he asked them to wait for the meeting on the 28th)
Shepherd also stated that Ullrich, the elected councilman and fellow worker told her that he told all the employees that she was the “Chief Rapture Girl” stirring all this up at the sheriff’s dept. She said she felt this was inappropriate at that she’s just trying to get answers on issues that affect all employees.

Mike Kramer of Pinnacle Advisory Group re-explained the plan to commissioners and employees at Fox’s request. There were 10 bidders on this plan. He talked also about the costs being $700,000 more than the previous year and estimates almost $1.6 million more next year. They budgeted for $2.4 million and the county is self-insured. Pinnacle is the broker and Health Span is the administrator. Apparently schools and municipalities have higher user rates on health care.
The blood draw is done by the company to get 33 tests- standardized, eliminates chasing down test results from multiple doctors, and give consistent reporting for the patient.
Kramer noted that hardly anyone shows up for meetings to explain these plans, when offered for staff.
[NOTE: What does the Wellness Care component of this plan cost? Could there be savings if all government employees, cities, and towns too, and schools combined resources and bid out as a large group?]
Commissioners will investigate more and the group is going to Council next.
Pickens noted that this was not really changeable for this year. Budget was set. He also said it is one of the best plans around and is still a perk.

2. Todd Listerman- Transportation Dept Director:
Triple Whipple Contract signed
Commissioners accepted Tall Oaks Drive 0.2 mi and Schipper Court 0.04 mile into the county maintenance and inventory of roads. They are off Dutch Hollow outside Aurora.

3. NACO Prescription coverage was tabled as Messmore forgot to get it checked with the insurance consultants.

4. The second half of a state grant agreement was signed for the Dept. of Corrections.

5. Commissioners signed the lobbyist activity report for $36,000 for the county from Frick and Associates. [NOTE: Is this a new lobbyist group besides Barnes and Thornburgh and Lewes- Kappes?]

6. Claims and Minutes signed

7. Ewbank read the amended credit card ordinance incorporating new State Board of Accounts rules. Messmore said there were no comments from dept. heads. Commissioners signed it. The ordinance seems to increase the logging requirements for each dept. on their credit cards. The rest was similar to previous ordinances.

8. Hughes will look into an ordinance amendment regarding replacing existing structures- he thinks there are some common sense rules that need to be looked at.

Meeting adjourned 7:10 PM

Christine Brauer Mueller
Lawrenceburg Township