Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

Is absent with Excuse to absent if there is such a thing, and then I'm back with her. Approve of the minutes, can

we get a

motion? I'll motion to approve. I'll second that. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Also. Citizens to be heard on agenda. We got two citizens. Would you like to be heard as part of the

agenda? Absolutely. Okay.

Moving ahead to the agenda items. Singh?

First item we have is the renewal of the city's property liability and work comp insurance. As you know, the current coverage expires October 1. Renewal premiums that we are seeing are an increase of 15.8% or a little over $318,000 from the prior twelve months. Factors that led into that were an increase of values that we insure of our properties by about 10%. We also have some additional exposure and some liability claims and then a 4.6 increase in work comp just because payrolls have gone up.

As part of the renewal, we have added terrorism coverage. So in the event that there's a terrorist act that damages or causes exposure to the city, we'll have coverage for that. And we also, with the CERT program, added coverage for volunteers. Not part of this, but what we're looking at, what we're investigating is coming back to to look at the potential for adding auto physical damage. We currently have no auto physical damage, so we have a catastrophic event that damages a bunch of our vehicles or, you know, since we're self funded, we currently have no insurance coverage.

We're looking at options for that in the event, say, an example, our public works facility suffers damage or the vehicles within a lot it's wiped out by a tornado that will have some kind of insurance coverage. So we're investigating that. And if we're successful, we'd consider bringing that back in the future.

We you had mentioned mention to us prior that the change in brokers, they also found

a new carrier that we just have in the past. Oh, good point.

That has come in more competitive than what we're looking at.

Yeah. The first go around, we were almost 20% increase. Alliant Insurance Services was able to find an alternative carrier. We currently have three layers of coverage on top of our basic liability, and so he was able to get one carrier to take the first two layers. And then I think I forgot the the carrier name, but the one that was first actually picked up the last end.

Yeah. That that that that or something.

Yeah. Medicine is the one that picked up the first two. I don't know if it was Chubb or Safety National. Don't remember who at the top who has the third player. So, anyway, that move saved us a couple $100,000.

So that was a positive impact. What what else he was able to do is negotiate you know, in reviewing our current practices, we had some loss prevention as our with our TPA that we had never used. If you remember, we have Sheffield that does our loss prevention for the city. So we removed that and then he was also able to negotiate his medicinal relief from Gallagher Bassett, our TPA. Meanwhile, we have we have added services to their plate of tracking auto auto physical damage.

So we will be submitting to them in the future when we have damage to our autos so we can get a roster of what those exposures would have been or were to the city. So that will help us with finding that coverage in the future.

And we had never done a big in the past? No. K. Questions?

Just looking up the company's subsidiary and the health plan.

Yeah. I will keep going. Well, next item is, we're submitting the budget for the city of Joliet. I know Paulina Martinez is here. This is her item, just in the interest of time so this budget this subordinate amends the budget to use funds that are currently in existence in the TIF funds.

So earlier this year, the council approved the deck of Decrement study. The decrement study to basically look at the tips to do the analysis for them. In hindsight, we should have brought you a budget amendment at the same time because the original budget did not factor that in. While there is cash in those funds to be able to pay for that study, so I can pay the invoice, we need a budget amendment. So that's what this item is. It's to formally amend the budget to fund that study using the cash reserves within the various TIF funds.

Alright, I am on a roll.

Next item I have is the renewal of our group health, dental, vision, and life insurance. So I do have with Marsh McLennan Agency in the audience, Ashton Harnung and Bobby Dufkis. So they are our new brokers, the brokers that the council approved earlier this year. They've helped us through this renewal. So they're here to answer any questions in case I need some assistance or you have that on.

No. So this is the renewal of our Blue Cross coverage and the processing of our claims, which includes stop loss for our active and our retirees. I think you guys both know what stop loss is. And so we get billed by Blue Cross for the claims processing, the stop loss, and then we get a credit for the amount of the prescription drug rebates. So in '24, that amounted to a credit of 50¢ a member. For '20 I'm sorry. For '25, that was 50¢ a member. For '26, that's going to $2.91 a member. Obviously, So costs are going up there. Blue Cross also projects what our claims will be in the next renewal period.

And all with the claims and the cost, they're projecting that to be 11.79%. Overall, that's pretty good in today's market. It's actually lower than what we saw for 2025. Contributing to that, we believe, you know, we ran the claims for the new plans that the council approved for the nonunion members. So of the roughly 100 nonunion employees and officials, we had 87 move to the new plans.

So we ran, with with their assist with Marsh's assistance, the claims for active employees for the new plans and the old plan, the two fifty plan. We then converted that to an average claim per person that was covered and those new plans saved us conservatively between $2.50 and $500,000. So we then verified that that was a real savings and not just a savings on the backs of our employees through higher deductibles and coinsurance and out of pocket. So we looked at the actual visits that have co pays. So we looked at virtual visits, primary care specialists, urgent care and ER visits.

And overall throughout every category, saw a shifting away from the higher cost visits to the lower cost visits. Meaning, we saw a reduction per person covered from ER and urgent care and an increase in virtual and primary care visits. So as you know, those are the cheapest that we from an insurance provider, the cheapest visits that we'll have. So $120.44 versus almost 200 or $400. We feel comfortable that that was a savings realized by the city.

It really was a component of our employees choosing to spend health care dollars more wisely. They still got health care when they needed it, and it saved everyone themselves and the city a substantial amount of money. So that was a positive that we saw. For '26, just like with '25, in some aspects, those new plans enhance the benefit and save the city money. We're almost able to do the same thing.

The employees have asked for a real vision plan. Our vision plan today really isn't a plan, it's a reimbursement. The new plans, it's $200. What you don't get on those plans are negotiated rates and so on. So we've asked Marsh to see if they can get us a real vision plan, where you have a copay for the visit, you get an allowance for frames, contacts, glasses. After the allowance, you get discounts. There's a network. And so they work with Blue Cross to have them underwrite it. Blue Cross has a partnership with EyeMed, so it's using the EyeMed vision network. Because we're going through Blue Cross, we also get some discounts for bundling everything together.

Looking at the nonunion folks, because that's the only thing we can change. The unions are under contract. The non union folks, if all the ones that have picked the new plan move to the vision and stay in the plans, the city will have an increased cost of about roughly $4,000 Reason for that is you will be looking at the claims and the cost of premiums. This new vision plan is a fully insured plan. So we don't pay claims, we pay for insurance.

It's a four year rate guarantee. And so to fund that additional 4,000, we had a small committee, if you will, or group that was go helped through the renewal, myself, Kathy, we had Gina Legalbo from HR, Krista Desiderio, Lauren O'Hara, the clerk, Amy Snitski? Snitski. Thank you. From HR.

Mhmm. And then Pat Mudrin advised as well through parts of that. So our group, having interacted with the employees, felt that the employees overwhelmingly would want a vision plan hinge health, which is a benefit that basically they can call in and get stretches and so on for muscular skeletal. That hinge health benefit cost the city upwards of 30,000 a year. We felt that even if this went to the larger group, everyone would support not having Hinge but having Vision.

So that's our recommendation to eliminate Hinge, go with the Vision, overall the city will save roughly $26,000 for the 26 we're doing by doing that. So the action also sets the level of benefits for the non union active employees. Now I want to reiterate the benefits we talk about today are only for active employees. We're gonna come in October for retiree options, but given the confusion last year, we wanted to separate them. So as part of the packet, you see the new employee shares for the active employees that are nonunion.

Remember, unions are contract. Those are reflected in our $50 And so we stayed with the 5.75% of premium for the 500 plan and the $7.50 plan. And the same concept that the $2.50 deductible would would be the difference between that plan's COBRA premium and what, you know, five seven five of the percent of the 500 deductible was. So basically, as you guys know, that $2.50 plan is very expensive for the city. So the employees that want have to pay for the difference for that expense of plan. So I think I've covered everything.

One question. And this is just my curiosity. I think you said it really on for the non union charter employees and the officials that how many employees does that make up?

So it's 86 employees, and there are of that, when you include them and their family, there's 267.

And so of the 86 employees and

Their family. Yeah.

Yeah. The

86 does include some council Okay. So I'm sorry.

How many that's how many went on

the plan? Yep.

So how many would would have been able to It

was a 101 total.

That's very good

number. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, when we talked during open enrollment, as you know, there's not one plan that's better for everyone. I have an employee who is a sickly family member. For her, she felt the two fifty was the better plan. Now, obviously, I'm talking to her saying, you might have actually saved money on the other one. You know? Because when you look at the out of pocket max and so on. So so no. Yeah. I

was curious.

And we we had heard from an you know, through the different members of the committee talking with employees and their departments about, you know, which plan they were on. And some they had some that were on the old and they said, why did stay on the old? I just didn't really understand the new. I didn't really pay attention. And so they're interested going, well, maybe I do wanna switch.

So I think we'll have a we think we'll have more move over because we've even had some discussions with, you know, part of the collective bargaining agreements that you guys have approved for the unions, including one tonight. The council says that they'll sit down and talk about insurance. They're they're not obligated till 2030, but we did have a meeting last week. Really want to be part of those discussions. They've got members and retirees who want the plans. And so I think that's a good it should be something for the council to say that was a good decision for you. We knew that was something people were going to want, and it saved the city money. So I think it's really paying off.

I'm very happy with the plan itself.

I'm sure you're Kevin, you can correct me. I didn't do the math on it, but I

thought one of the

our our meetings, the people who stay with the $2.50 are gonna pay about $700 a year more in premium

than people with the 500. Yes. So as an example single contract. Per paycheck, the $7.50 is a 100 it's just under a little less than a $100 more of paycheck. So a 100 times 26, they're gonna pay 2,600 more than the the $2.50 plan versus the 500 plan. So if you have a family Family. You're talking about Yeah. If you have a family and you cover under the $2.50, you're gonna pay the city 2,600 just to have that plan more than if if you had the 500 deductible. On a single side, it's what's it? $40, roughly? 32. Thousand bucks. Thousand bucks. Yeah. About a thousand dollars more just to have that plan.

The reason well, here's why, though, but I want you to consider. Urgent care is free.

It makes sense that that's Medicare.

Oh, okay. Makes sense to Oh, okay. Yeah. No. It doesn't. No. It doesn't. But that's the true increase in exposure on that

plan. No. I know. I

know. Yeah. Yep.

And this open enrollment is gonna make

less sense to stay. Absolutely. Absolutely. So dental plan not changing. Once again, it's a little bit of to cover implants on the $507.50 plan. We're keeping that. And then I think the big one's gonna be the the game changer is the actual vision plan. I think that's going to Mhmm. Get people to really consider it. So we good? We keep

moving. Good. Alright. Next

item I have is so Nicole Hughes was promoted to deputy city clerk. The current the the former one transferred to another position in the city, and so we just need to update signers. So the resolution just basically replaces all the names with Nicole Hughes. Alright. You have the August monthly financial and so what I wanna point out on one just based on discussions from prior meetings. So overall, we have a $1,300,000 surplus. I want you to you know, we have twelve months in the year. This is as of '8. There's still plenty of months to go. The same revenues that I talked about being above budget or above, the same that have been trending below are still trending below.

Compared to this time last year, we're reported 15 more in revenues through August, 39,000,000 more in expenses. So if you look at compared to last year, we're losing a lot of money. Once again, it's all timing based. It doesn't mean that's the way we're gonna end the year, but when you look at a snapshot in time. And so I've I've equated this to for others is it's kind of like looking at your own paycheck. Right? So if I look at my paycheck the day drawing direct deposit goes in, I've got a lot of money. If I look at it the day after my mortgage payment comes in, I don't have so much more money. That's kind of this. So you can't look at a snapshot. We have to look at the whole year to see how we did. So it came up last I just wanted to point out point that out.

K. You

should probably sell your house too. K. I was gonna buy your wife a birthday present. Okay. You You know that one's bad. K? Yeah. Alright. Sewer and water and parking are doing about the same. Parking, I improved my outlook saying slightly better than budget, but we'll see how it goes next month. Yeah. Alright. I will tell you we're gonna end at your worst than budget because you got rid of parking. Great. We're in the garage. But we are adding automation in the deck, which we'll see may it may even out.

We'll see.

Library if you don't know. November 1 is what it's targeted for. Yeah. That'll be interesting. Library, they had 70 almost 75,000 visitors. Alright. Almost 35,000 were at downtown. They did and they had a 111 items that were checked out. Not included in those 75 were an additional 20,000 people who attended 586 programs, and then we did close their construction. I did. Yeah. Yeah. I got it. We got the invoice exceptions, which I think are pretty routine. These are the checks paid in between meetings for routine items and reimbursements.

And then travel, think same concept. It's back to normal. And with that, I will turn it over to Ted.

Pretty high level high level overview of positions, open positions in that are represented. We currently have 10. They're open positions. We're sitting at six with one pending offer that we're waiting to hear about. Any questions?

Here that would like to comment. It appears. So we'll confirm motion. Motion to adjourn. I'll second that. All in favor? Aye. Aye.