City Renews Health Insurance; No Change in Employee Contributions

City of Toccoa employees will not see an increase in their health insurance costs this coming year.

On Monday, the city commission unanimously approved the renewal of the city’s health insurance policy with the Georgia Municipal Association for the year ahead with no change to employee contributions.

The GMA is raising the city’s premiums by 10 percent in the year ahead.

Matt Bidwell, who serves as the city’s health insurance consultant, says that the GMA initially proposed a 23 percent increase.

According to Bidwell, that was because the city had a period with a lot of paid claims in early 2014.

However, Bidwell says the city’s paid claims have been at an average amount now for the last year or so, allowing him to negotiate a lower increase.

“I told him if he stuck to 23 percent, while it is justifiable for the block of time he was using, it would not got with the commercial carriers,” said Bidwell. “They just basically forgave those six months of really terrible claims we had.”

Bidwell went on to say that 10 percent increase would cause an increase in the city’s health insurance premium costs.

According to information provided by the city, the increase would have meant about another $1.08 in deductions per week for an employee on the plan used by most city employees and another $7 or so in weekly deductions for an employee that has the family coverage used by most city employees.

Toccoa City Manager Billy Morse said that the city did have enough money to cover the entire premium increase and not pass any of it along to city employees.

Toccoa City Commissioner Jeanette Jamieson said she feels that is what the city should do.

“Over a period of time when they absorb that increase, that could be a power bill, a natural gas bill, or a house payment,” said Jamieson. “If we can do it, I would like to see us do it.”

The total increase in costs to the city on health insurance will be about $158,000.

Meanwhile, the city of Toccoa will be updating its phone system at City Hall.

Monday, Toccoa City Commissioners unanimously approved a new phone system.

City Manager Billy Morse said that the city’s current phone system is older and in need of an upgrade.

“The current phone system is 16 years old and is antiquated and needs to be replaced,” said Morse.

Morse says the city will be saving about $15,000 a year with TruVista’s quote for the city.

In other news from the city of Toccoa, city commissioners unanimously approved declaring some surplus property and also appointed five individuals to the city’s Ethics Panel.

City commissioners unanimously appointed Lamar Davis, Lavern Cox, Bill Ayers, Gary Bellamy, and Gary Fricks to that panel.