The Indianola Board of Aldermen reconvened on Friday night in a second special session with the intent of finalizing the issue of choosing a provider and plan for the city employees' health insurance before this past Monday’s deadline.
Essentially, nothing changed from the previous sessions, but the meeting lasted almost an hour and ended on a 4-1 vote to adjourn, with Darrell Simpson voting no.
A determination made at a June 10 special call meeting to remain temporarily with Blue Cross Blue Shield, trussed with a reported 3-2 choice made at their June 8 regular meeting, to go with the second of three proposed cost options, yielded a decision, but not a solution according to a statement made by Mayor Steve Rosenthal. In addition, during Friday night's session, Alderman Marvin Elder made another motion to go with Blue Cross Blue Shield's option two, but he proposed an addendum to make Hunter Hollingsworth/Collier Insurance the broker of record for the city.
His motion eventually failed for lack of a second.
Last year the city paid out around $515,000 in premiums for city workers. Option two, which was selected on a majority vote, has an annual cost of $816,780 to the city. The annual outlay for option three would have only been $777,876 and based on the information provided, the difference in the two plans would only affect a minimal number of city employees.
"We're going to have an increase no matter what. We're trying to lower the increase,” Rosenthal said. He told the aldermen that only five people would have been affected if they sided with option three and it would have resulted in a $38,904 savings to the city over option two.
At a special call meeting on June 10, Rosenthal had expressed his intent to veto the decision reportedly made by aldermen Ruben Woods, Marvin Elder and Sam Brock to go with the second option. But, at the onset of the meeting on Friday he announced that he was not going to follow through with that veto.
Simpson asserted that if Rosenthal was not going to veto the previous decision there was no need to continue on with the meeting since option two had already been chosen during that prior session. However, Rosenthal insisted on sharing some information in an attempt to sway the previous vote.
"I want to make a presentation, if it doesn't change, it doesn't change," said Rosenthal.
In comparison, the second option provided a $2,500 annual deductible for each city employee with a $6,400 maximum out-of-pocket for the year. Option three would have meant a $5,000 deductible per year and an $8,150 maximum annual out-of-pocket. Last year the deductible was $5,000, but the city used a supplemental insurance to pay $1,500 of that deductible, which left the employee with a $3,500 net deductible.
However, as Rosenthal explained in his presentation, only three people out of the city's near 100 employees hit the deductibles in the past year. In addition, only one person would be affected by the cap. He explained that with option two the city was making a near $39,000 decision that would affect only five people and save those five persons less than $3,000 total.
Rosenthal said, "Ninety-five people who work for the city will not be affected." He asked, “Do we want to spend $39,000 to save five people about $3,000? Because that's the only difference between item number three and number two as far as employees’ difference. "
Rosenthal admitted that the numbers mentioned were based on figures from the last two years; however, they were not expecting any changes. “Do we still want to go with option two?” he asked.
Rosenthal's presentation had no effect on the aldermen's prior choice. Since Woods made the first motion to go with option two, only he could rescind that motion so another one could be made.
When Rosenthal asked Woods if he was comfortable with rescinding the previous action Woods declined. His decision to continue on with the set course of action seemed to prompt a debate over the validity of the disclosed figures.
There also appeared to be some confusion about whether or not Blue Cross Blue Shield was supposed to respond to a direct request by Rosenthal for a new rate by Friday's session.
Rosenthal said that even though he had properly submitted the request Blue Cross Blue Shield had not provided the information, at which point Elder said, "We are the client. Blue Cross Blue Shield needs to respond to you. You are the mayor, that's what they should have done. Blue Cross Blue Shield don't want to respond to the mayor with the letter that you sent to them with what we are getting ready to do, let's put Blue Cross Blue Shield on notice.”
Rosenthal responded, “That's fine, (but) come Monday, we won't have insurance." Elder disagreed with Rosenthal's statement and asserted that was the reason why he made his earlier motion the way that he did.
Fratesi then emphasized a choice made at the meeting on the 10th to give Hollingsworth the designated time to respond, "Give the boy what he wanted, he said that if he had 70 days he could do it,” he said.
He added, "Let's just stay where we are and in 70 days let Hunter earn our business." Woods also agreed with Fratesi.
Additionally, several questions came up regarding individuals and services that compelled Elder to ask Rosenthal if all parties concerned had been invited to Friday night's meeting.
Elder said Rosenthal should have made sure Collier's and BCBS's representatives along with the attorney were present. “Everybody should have been here tonight to hear what's being said,” Elder said.
At one point Elder cried out repetitively, “This a bait and switch, this is bait and switch.”
Simpson said, “Hunter (Hollingsworth) knew we were going to have a meeting tonight, if he wanted to talk about it, he could have been here.”
Elder reemphasized that the meeting was a, “bait and switch.” Rosenthal injected, "That's what they were trying to do, I agree."
Simpson then added, "It is a bait and switch but, it is a big switch on Collier's side not our side."
The debate continued and Elder persisted that Collier should have been invited to the meeting.
Simpson said, “I'm going to address the elephant in the room. I'm wondering what Mr. Elder's partnership with Collier is because I hadn't heard of Collier until last week."
Elder responded that the mayor had heard of them, but Rosenthal said a phone call on the prior Thursday was the earliest he has heard of them. Rosenthal, Simpson and Fratesi continued to express concerns regarding statements made by Hollingsworth at their last meeting and at one point Rosenthal said everything has been "smoke and mirrors."
Elder continued to protest. "Alderman Elder, you have heard everything I've heard, 100%. Do you know any more than I know?"
Elder said no. Rosenthal continued, "You don't know anything else because they told us nothing. They told us nothing, so why do you want them?"
Simpson again questioned Elder's connection with the Collier Insurance group and why Elder was pushing so hard for the city to hire them.
Elder insisted that the Collier group was new to him also.
"My understanding, the broker said the other night nobody would take us, they weren't interested in us, they haven't gotten any quotes. So, if that is true with our broker, hell, where he been the last few years nobody talking?" Elder said.
Elder went on to say that Hollingsworth has talked to people that the city's broker has not talked to.
Rosenthal emphasized that Hollingsworth was saying that he could get quotes after the city signs with him, but he had everything that he needed in order to get quotes but could not bring any.
Fratesi stressed that the city is in a bad spot financially and that the pandemic situation has not made it any better; however, he did agree that the workers needed to be taken care of.
Currently, one third of the city's employees reportedly do not have to pay anything toward their health insurance, but Rosenthal said that with this increase it's a good chance that everybody would have to share in.
Fratesi said, "I want to challenge the board members to come up with a way to pay for this increase. Everybody that voted for it, I want them to come up with a way to pay it because I don't think it's fair, and I want it on the agenda next time how we're going to assess the employees."
When asked why he chose to stay with option two instead of going with option three, Woods said, "I'm not obliged to answer that question, but since you asked that's not totally true. It's going off of total speculation. If nothing happened, everybody is open to have a $5,000 deductible. You can't say this only affects five people."
In a written statement after the meeting Rosenthal said, “I will have to say, I am very disappointed that three members of the board were more concerned about five employees rather than 95 employees and the rest of our citizens. Insurance is based on historical data and assumptions. Our pharmaceutical expenses have been astronomically high for the last four years, we have not lost any of our high uses or expect to, the four-year data confirm that, and we (and insurance company) would assume that it would be the same next year.”
Rosenthal went on to say that option three lowers that increase from approximately $214,000 down to $175,000. “A savings for our employees and our citizens of $38,904. The sad part is that we will be spending $39,000 saving just five employees a projected total of only $2,750.”
Rosenthal also said, “Alderman Simpson's question to Alderman Elder, 'Why are you insisting on hiring Collier Insurance?' My question would be, why are you worried about Collier and option two rather than the burden (of) adding $39,000 more expense will do to our employees and to the citizens of your ward and our city.”
Rosenthal said, “My worries are about all of our people, when taxes go up, rent go up, housing cost go up. What you buy in local stores will go up. Prospective employers will not look at Indianola as a place to invest, industry will look elsewhere, high taxes can cause a downward death spiral for a small town if not kept in check.”
Rosenthal further stated, “The board has had all of this info for at least 45 days, but Marvin wants to blame me because he does not read the information. The request of Blue Cross Blue Shield was sent out that night after the meeting within 30 minutes of Hunter sending it to me. I did not CC Hunter on me sending it to BCBS, but all of the aldermen were. So, Marvin knows that it went out. When we ended the meeting on Wednesday the consensus of the board was that we would give Hunter everything he needed to get us a quote (which he already had) and he could bring it to us, and we would consider it.”
Rosenthal added, “Last night's meeting (Friday night) was to decide if we would stay with the original vote of number two or resend and go with number three. Marvin was so aggressive to move to Collier we might have stayed on track to move to number three. I did not veto because as crazy as it is, if I open that door we might have ended up with number one, which Ruben threatened to do on Monday night.”
