The director of the agency in charge of Arkansas' health insurance exchanges will receive an annual bonus of up to $10,506, the agency's board decided Wednesday.
At the same meeting, the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace board also awarded a three-year, $3 million contract to a Massachusetts company to build and operate a system to collect premium contributions from employers and other sources for people insured through the state's exchange for small-business employees.
The exact amount of the bonus for marketplace Director Cheryl Gardner wasn't determined. Instead the board decided her bonus will be the same percentage of her salary as the average bonus for the marketplace's 12 employees.
Gardner, whose annual salary is $175,100, said the employees are eligible for annual bonuses of up to 6 percent of their salaries. Agency supervisors are almost finished determining employee bonus amounts for 2016, and the average bonus so far is about 5 percent, she said.
Board Chairman Mike Castleberry said the board used the same method in awarding Gardner a $10,200 bonus, equal to 6 percent of her salary at the time, in April for her job performance in 2015.
The board also awarded Gardner a 3 percent salary increase in July. Five other employees also received merit-based raises of up to 5 percent that month, marketplace spokesman Alicia McCoy said.
Sen. David Sanders, R-Little Rock and chairman of the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace Legislative Oversight Committee, said Wednesday that he expects marketplace officials to brief lawmakers on the bonuses at the committee's next meeting.
"The board certainly has a job to do, and they are doing it," Sanders said. "They are the best at sizing up the performance of their executive director."
The Legislature created the marketplace in 2013 to set up state-run health exchanges for individual consumers and small businesses.
About 300 people are covered in plans offered through the small-business exchange, which the marketplace set up last year using money from a $99.9 million federal grant.
At Gov. Asa Hutchinson's request, the marketplace scrapped plans to use the remaining grant money to set up the exchange for individual consumers.
Instead, the agency is taking over responsibility for certifying the plans sold on the exchange and providing information to consumers while continuing to rely on the federal enrollment system.
The marketplace is also helping small businesses sign up to offer subsidized, job-based coverage for low-income Arkansans under Arkansas Works, a revamped version of the state's expanded Medicaid program.
Under its contract with the marketplace, Braintree, Mass.-based NFP Health will set up a system that can be used to collect contributions from multiple employers, as well as other sources, such as a government program, and send it to an insurance company to pay the premium for an employee covered through a plan on the small business exchange.
Gardner said last month that the premium aggregation system will be designed for employees who have multiple jobs and receive coverage through the small business exchange.
The system could also be used to administer subsidies under programs such as Arkansas Works, she said.
The marketplace will pay NFP more $1.5 million in grant funds to set up the system and a total of $1.4 million to operate it over three years.
Money for the operating costs will come from a fee, equal to 3 percent of the premiums for plans sold on the exchanges, that the marketplace plans to start collecting from insurance companies as early as next month.
According to the contract bid solicitation, the system is expected to be operational by October of next year.
Metro on 11/10/2016