The Pulaski County Quorum Court Budget Committee voted Tuesday night to indefinitely table a proposal that would have covered employees' insurance premiums through the end of the year using reserve-fund money.
The measure was approved 11-0, with four committee members absent, after several justices of the peace raised concerns about whether taking money from reserves would be prudent and whether approving the measure would establish a precedent to continue to cover premiums in years to come.
"I'm not saying I don't want to give $10 per pay period to employees. I do," said District 6 Justice of the Peace Donna Massey, a Democrat.
The measure means the issue may never come up again. District 13 Justice of the Peace Phil Stowers, a Republican, had first suggested tabling the proposal for 60 days, but some committee members didn't want to see the proposal come up again as written.
After amassing a $1.85 million surplus from last year's budget, the Quorum Court voted in February to place most of that into the county's three reserve funds.
Tuesday's proposal would have taken more than $200,000 combined from two of those reserve funds -- emergency reserves and public safety reserves -- and moved it into the self-insured fund to cover the $10 premium increase for employees this year.
"Last year was a bad year for claims," county comptroller Mike Hutchens told the committee, which consists of all 15 justices of the peace.
The increase in claims, anchored by a handful of expensive ailments, led to an increase in the rate United Healthcare decided to charge the county for coverage this year, Hutchens said.
The county chose not to adjust its policy to attempt to keep premiums at zero because new fees associated with the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act imposed on employers who make drastic policy changes would have been almost as high as the amount of money that the county would have saved with the policy change, Hutchens said.
Much of the debate on this issue and other employee benefit proposals centers on the issue of county employees not being granted raises for the past four years, District 5 Justice of the Peace Lillie McMullen, a Democrat, said after the vote.
"I think if we could give them a raise, it would all be better," budget chairman Bob Johnson, a Democrat from District 11, said after the meeting. Johnson told the Quorum Court last week that he didn't think morale was very good for county employees.
"I was in support of doing something that would help employees' morale," he said after the meeting Tuesday.
Johnson, who drafted the measure to cover the increase, said Tuesday that he proposed taking the funds from reserves because the general fund's unappropriated monies were not enough and because the reserve funds had been beefed up last month from the carryover.
"Maybe I was too late," he said after the vote.
"Once we put them in reserve funds, they're not coming out," he said.
Johnson said he had spoken with numerous county employees about what they believed was the biggest issue for them right now and that they had all answered that the additional $10 on their insurance premiums every two weeks was most upsetting.
Unlike at last month's Quorum Court agenda meeting, when justices of the peace heard a proposal to expand employee leave benefits, few county employees turned out for Tuesday night's budget meeting.
Johnson said he still expects a different leave benefits proposal in the coming months that might address some of the morale issues.
Stowers asked how the county might ever get into a revenue situation in which the Quorum Court could stop voting down raises.
Hutchens said annual revenue increases are small -- around 2 percent -- but that they would come.
County revenue for 2013 was more than $60 million, creating the carryover.
"A few million dollars is going to make a raise for these people," he said.
Metro on 03/19/2014