City Council - Regular Meeting

We're going to go ahead and call this next meeting to order. This is our special council meeting for health insurance. Today's Friday, August 21st, 2026. The time is now 3.15 p.m. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Councilwoman Corrinoso?

Present. Councilwoman Maria Porras? Here. Councilman Rafael Pinedo? Present. Vice Mayor Degna Cabral is not present. Mayor Chrissy Fraga?

Present. Mayor Hapkorn? All right. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance led by Councilman Pinedo. Okay, no changes to the agenda. Order of business. I'm going to go ahead and open up public comments for a moment. Anyone who would like to speak on this agenda or anything germane to this council, please approach the podium. Okay, being no public comments, we will close public comments. Madam Clerk, I have the record reflect. No one has chosen to speak at this time, and I will go ahead and turn it over to the city manager.

Yes, good afternoon again, Mayor and Council. Okay, the city's consultant, National Marketing Group Services, has completed its annual marketing and negotiation process for the City of Doral's FY26-27 Employee Benefits Insurance Renewals. AEDNA, THE CITY'S INCUMBENT MEDICAL CARRIER, ISSUED ITS FINAL DECISION AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL, A 9.5% INCREASE, AND HELD FIRM AS A BEST AND FINAL OFFER WITH NO RATE CAP GUARANTEE AVAILABLE. GIVEN THAT POSITION, NMGS MARKETED THE CITY'S GROUP TO A BROADER CARRIER MARKET. UnitedHealthcare returned the most competitive offer, proposing medical pricing that is 12.4 to 13.7% below Aetna's renewal, with matching plan designs at every tier and a 99.3% provider network match to the current Aetna network. That means that employees would keep seeing the doctors they see today with minimal disruption. When Dental Vision Life, AD&D, short-term disability, and long-term disability are bundled with United, the combined package will unlock an additional 3% discount. In addition, United is also providing the city with a $40,000 annual wellness budget and a one-time $25,000 technology credit. That will help us with setting everything up with Paycom and transferring things over. GIVING THIS INFORMATION, CITY STAFF'S RECOMMENDATION BASED ON THE RECOMMENDATION OF NATIONAL MARKETING GROUP SERVICES IS FOR THE CITY COUNCIL TO APPROVE UNITED HEALTHCARE AS OUR NEW INSURANCE CARRIER AND HAVE HUMAN RESOURCES BEGIN THE REENROLLMENT PROCESS. WE HAD TO CALL THE MEETING TODAY AND THE REASON I CALLED THE SPECIAL MEETING IS PRECISELY BECAUSE WE ARE Out of time, we couldn't wait until the September council meeting, which is when we usually do the approvals, because we wouldn't have enough time to re-enroll everyone by the October 1st deadline. So I just wanted to let everyone know that. So joining us today is Michael Gonzalez, Vice President and Director of Operations for National Marketing Group Services, who will provide a brief presentation outlining the proposal and recommendation for the FY26-27 Employee Benefits Plan.

Thank you.

GOOD AFTERNOON, MADAM MAYOR, COUNCIL MEMBERS, MADAM MANAGER, DEPUTY CITY MANAGER, CITY ATTORNEY AND CITY CLERK. MY NAME IS MICHAEL GONZALEZ. I'M WITH NATIONAL MARKETING GROUP SERVICES. WE'RE YOUR INSURANCE CONSULTANTS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME TODAY. Madam Manager, you pretty much stole all my thunder with your breakdown there. But I'll walk you through maybe some of the finer details of what's going on throughout this renewal process for us. So as Madam Manager mentioned, the Aetna renewal initially actually came in at a 28% increase. We negotiated that down to 9.5%. From there, Aetna would not budge further. Despite all the analytics and data brought them and the competitive proposals that we tried to leverage with them, they would not budge from 9.5%, mostly due to, in my opinion, our latest claims experience in April was extremely high. Therefore, we took the account out to market. All viable carriers were proposed, and we landed on a deal with UnitedHealthcare that's coming in at between 13% and 14.6% below the Aetna renewal. That is with matching benefits, apples to apples. And in addition to that, network access for the employees will remain where all the employees, or at least most of them, except for our great CFO, who his one provider out of 28 that I looked up was not in the network, but the rest are, matching 99.3%.

After everything.

Yes. That is a burden I will carry for the rest of the year. But the rest of the employees hopefully should find their providers all in network. Again, matching benefits apples to apples, and in some cases, improving benefits such as mental health co-pay, which is going from $40 to $20. In addition, our dental, vision, life, and disability benefits are all remaining the same as well in terms of the actual benefits offered. However, we will see a savings on the dental of $13,900 for the year, an increase in the vision of $8,961, but is offset also by the life AD&D and LTD discount of $12,280, basically netting an ancillary savings of $17,220 for the year. Additionally, we will receive a 2.5% bundling discount for having all the plans bundled with one carrier, which aside from that 2.5% discount is also a logistical streamlining of benefits because, for example, on the short-term disability, since we have medical with United and short-term will be with United, For example, maternity or deliveries, it will be something that will be coordinated seamlessly without any sort of interruption or delays in paying those payments. We will keep and maintain our $40,000 annual wellness budget and also obtain a $25,000 tech credit budget to help with the transition from Edna to United. While the decision to move away from Edna after nine years was not an easy one, trust me, we labored over this for a long time, the savings is just too great to pass up. Roughly 14% is a big savings to the city, especially as you were talking about before on the budget meeting. We are keeping the same coverages for our employees, maintaining strong provider network access, Employees' contributions will remain the same, so there's no increase to their costs. And that pretty much summarizes our recommendation, which at this time is to move to UnitedHealthcare. I'll leave the floor open to questions.

I WANT TO ADD ONE MORE THING. I THINK MICHAEL RESEARCHED ALSO FOR US THE EMPLOYEES WE HAD RIGHT NOW THAT WERE DOING BUSINESSES OUT OF NETWORK. YES. SO THERE WAS A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF CLAIMS THAT WE HAVE THAT EMPLOYEES RIGHT NOW we're going out of network, right? That we're choosing providers and having treatments or doing medical services outside of the network.

And I believe... 92.79% of the visits that are currently out of network will be in network with United.

So those were the many reasons and many conversations. We did take the Aetna negotiations all the way to the national level. I mean, Michael worked very hard to try to get them to turn around. And that was just not the case. And it has a lot to do with utilization, and we understand that. But I just, we feel that it is very comparable and that employees will be happy. And we also didn't want to consider raising anyone's Payments, so I think this is the best decision that we can recommend Real quick, I did want to thank Maria and Rita and Lauren because we have been debating all this with them, and it is going to be a heavy lift for HR because we do have to re-enroll everyone. So I am very happy to say they were very supportive, and it is going to be a lot of work for them, but they are great. are ready and we think we can get all of this done seamlessly between now and October 1st. And I want to thank Michael and his team because they have also been fantastic through this entire process.

Thank you, Madam Manager. I just want to say a couple of things before I open it up to everybody. If anybody has any questions. I know this has been tough and everybody's always really nervous about changing insurances. I was definitely nervous when I said it. We've been with Edna for a really long time. And so I know that each year we've absorbed those smaller increases. And I think we were even prepared this year to absorb about a 5% increase. but it really was just too high and too good of an opportunity being apples to apples. Fernando, it's just the sacrifices that we make as public servants for the people of Doral. I have a good doctor I can recommend, and she is on network because I checked. So it's something that is always hard for the employees because health insurance is so important. So I know everyone did their best. I even called the Aetna upscale. I know you talked to them too and really tried to push. We didn't want to have to do that with our employees. it was just too big of an absorption for the city at the percentage. So understanding all of that, I want to thank you for the work you did and like sitting and showing that there would really be no interruption of service for most employees, except for Fernando. But I think that we'll be happy. My biggest concern was, you know, we make this whole move and next year we end up getting hit with another, you know, they hit us in the end. They're kind of just like buying the plan. And I know there's no guarantees for that. It is what it is. I think we were very lucky as a city to be with Aetna for as long as we were without any major increases. So I guess we'll just take it year by year. But I think those savings will be well utilized this year. It's one of the reasons we're able to do what you just saw us do with our workshop and utilize those funds to invest back into the community. Benefits and health insurance are important factors of how we retain and attract talented employees in our city, and obviously something that's important to us. One of the things that this plan, to my understanding, does better is mental health. Can you talk about that?

The mental health co-pay for the plan that Most of the employees are on, about 298 employees are on. The co-pay is going down from $40 to $20 per visit.

I think that was one of the great benefits of this.

The EAP program also increased the face-to-face meetings for mental health from four face-to-face to five.

which is great. So some added benefits there. And I believe that also the bundling, which gives additional life insurance and all these other things. I think we've been looking at the pet insurance, right? All the bundling gives us additional savings. So thank you very much for the hard work you guys do. I know your families were residents here. So we take this very much to heart. You guys do a great job. We really appreciate the longstanding relationship we've had. And I know every year you guys, I talk to mayors across cities and stuff. And even last night I was with a couple and they were telling me about increases that they get that sometimes their agents don't even go out. to shop, and they're absorbing 20% increases and stuff. So I told them they need to look at putting out a bid. Maybe piggybacking off of Doral's. So thank you very much for the hard work you guys did. And to all of our staff, I just want to make sure everyone feels comfortable that we really did the best and really looked at the opportunity to stay. But the plans are very, very, very comparable. So thank you for that. Any questions?

Councilwoman Rados the mayor so you know I have a background in health service administration So this language is it's quite easy for me to understand and I think really the most important thing that we have to make sure that we are communicating is the Services the benefits that our employees will continue to have although the name-brand of the insurance is changing correct yes, and I We never know what the future holds, but we can't stick with a company that was already going to charge us more and then being able to find just another reputable company that can do the same, if not a little more, and save the city money so i think the timing is appropriate um i really do hope that the benefits that we're giving the the employees do stay mostly the same um and i and i do agree we we couldn't pass on the savings just to keep the name of another insurance company or the same insurance company so i i think it is worth the risk to to switch so i would be voting for this and i would like to Can we start a motion?

Motion by Councilwoman Reynoso to, oh, well, we need a clerk to read it into the record. Sorry. Motion by Councilwoman Reynoso, second by Councilman Pinedo. Is there any additional questions? None? OK. No additional questions? Let's go ahead and call the question.

I'm going to read the item into the record, Madam Mayor. Item 5A, a resolution of the Mayor and the City Council of the City of Darylford approving UnitedHealthcare as the city's health, dental, vision, life, short-term, and long-term disability insurance and its various benefits effective October 1, 2026. Authorizing the city manager or designee to execute all necessary documents subject to approval by the city attorneys to form a legal sufficiency. and to expand budgeted funds on behalf of the city in furtherance hereof, providing for implementation, incorporation of recitals, and an effective date. I have a motion to approve by Councilman Reynoso, seconded by Councilman Pinedo. Councilman Reynoso?

Yes.

Councilman Pinedo?

Yes.

Councilman Porras? Yes.

Mayor Fraga?

Yes. Motion passes. All right. Thank you very much for your work.

Thank you, Council.

Okay, I just need a motion to adjourn, right? We have nothing to say. Motion to adjourn by Councilman Pinedo, seconded by Councilman Reynoso. On favor, say aye. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you all very much. Have a great weekend.