Health insurance increase sparks gripes

By KEVIN BLANCHARD

kblanchard@theadvocate.com

Acadiana bureau



LAFAYETTE -- The city-parish is looking at several options to fix a deficit-laden employee health insurance program, Chief Administrative Officer Dee Stanley told the Lafayette City-Parish Council on Monday.

Councilman Dale Bourgeois said he has received more than 60 calls from employees concerned about the administrations plan to generally double the monthly premium employees pay.



Councilman Lenwood Broussard urged the administration to brief the council on what options might be available.



"This is a crisis," Broussard said.



The administration is proposing single coverage monthly premiums to jump from $54 to $117 and family coverage from $175 to $336.



The increase is required because the city-parish's self-funded system has battled heavy deficits for a few years, Stanley said.



Employees contributed about $3 million each year to a system that pays $14 million in claims, Stanley said.



That deficit will have to be plugged by a $5 million one-time contribution from the general fund, amounting to about 5 percent of the total general fund, Stanley said.



If nothing changes, the problem will come up again.



Broussard suggested the administration put out a request for proposals to private companies to see what types of deals those companies could offer.



Without committing to the idea, Stanley said asking for proposals could show that what the administration is proposing is fair since private companies might charge similar premiums.



"It could validate that we're doing the right thing," Stanley said, adding he met Monday with officials with the Louisiana Police Jury Association about what other communities do to fund government employee health insurance.



The approaches differ, from self-funded to private offerings to the 12 parishes that don't offer employees any health insurance, Stanley said.



Whatever approach is taken to fix the problem it's likely to involve higher costs for employees or some changes in benefits or deductibles, Stanley said.



"The premiums have been artificially low for a number of years," he said.



Health insurance was an off-topic discussion at Monday's council briefing, which was called for the purpose of looking at next fiscal year's Traffic and Transportation Department budget.



The administration proposed spending only $75,000 to fund the Night Owl bus service, buses that run at night after the normal bus routes have closed.



That $75,000 matches a $75,000 federal grant to run the program, but it's a decrease from the $240,000 spent last year by the city-parish for the service.



Last year, the administration told the contractor that runs the Night Owl bus service that it planned to decrease the amount of money spent this fiscal year.



The contractor has yet to tell the city whether the level of services will be decreased because of the decreased funding, said Tony Tramel, director of traffic and transportation.



Councilman Louis Benjamin made a motion that the budget be amended to increase the city's portion of the Night Owl bus service to $181,000. That would ensure that the program could continue year-to-year without problems, Benjamin said.