Select Board - Regular Meeting

Okay, our next item on the agenda is open forum and announcements. Does anybody have anything to talk about that's outside the scope of the agenda this evening? Okay, I don't think we do. Just a couple of housekeeping items. We have copies of the presentation that we're gonna be showing down here, as well as copies of the agenda. So if you don't have one of those and you feel like you will have difficulty seeing on the screen behind me, just put your hand up and we'll, Mike, would you mind? Oh boy, okay. I don't know if we have enough to accommodate everybody, so, okay. This has also been posted to our packet, so it is available online. So if you can access it via your smartphone if you have that with you. And I'm gonna give Mike a second to get that information out to you folks. So I'm going to move on to our next agenda item, which is our health insurance listening session, the reason why we're all here this evening. And first, I just want to say thank you for all of you all taking out time from your day to come here and be with us this afternoon. We also have quite a number of people on our Zoom meeting. We recognize that this is an imposition to you all to take up time and come, and we recognize that this is an important topic for you. THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR MAKING THE EFFORT. WE REALLY APPRECIATE IT. I'M GOING TO GET TO THAT IN ONE SECOND. YEP. SO THANK YOU FOR THAT SEGUE. MY NAME IS CHRIS BARRETT. I'M THE CURRENT CHAIR OF THE SELECT BOARD. JUST TO GIVE A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY ABOUT ME, I'VE BEEN VOLUNTEERING FOR THE TOWN FOR ABOUT 15 YEARS NOW IN VARIOUS POSITIONS. MOST RECENTLY, THIS IS NOW MY SECOND TERM AS A SELECT BOARD MEMBER. With the rest of my board here, I'm gonna introduce them. We have Sean Kelly, Noel, Tom, Elizabeth. These are folks that have all been, like myself, volunteering in one capacity or another for this community for a very, very long time. We all have kids that have gone through the school systems and taken part in programs like what the park and rec offers. We recognize that the efforts that you, and the retirees are what make Westford the place that we all want to live and raise our families in today. I can't tell you how positive my interactions have been with the teachers in the schools, with the professional staff that I've had the opportunity to work with over the past decade and a half. I've seen just displays of excellence that I would never have thought possible. The dedication, the willingness to go the extra mile is truly remarkable. And I just think, you know, I'm not alone in that. I recognize that our residents probably feel the same way. And I understand that this discussion is probably making a lot of folks feel like we're not being listened to. We're not being... uh... we don't feel like leadership recognizes what we do for the community and i want to make sure that everybody's really clear on behalf of myself and i think i'm speaking for my board as well we truly value your contributions to this community because of your efforts we have a wonderful community to live and raise our families in so thank you for that now having said that One of the challenges that I've recognized in my time as a board member on the select board is that we have to make really, really hard decisions. And we are representing the entirety of Westford, all 25,000. Well, when we have difficult decisions, it's really, really challenging. And we have that scenario unfolding today. But it hasn't started today. This has been coming for years, starting with our BUDGET OVERRIDE ATTEMPT A FEW YEARS AGO. THIS BOARD WENT THROUGH EXTREME BLANKS TO TRY TO GET A BUDGET OVERRIDE PASSED. MANY LISTENING SESSIONS, OUTREACH TO THE COMMUNITY. WE WENT AND HOSTED, FINALLY, ONE OF THE LARGEST TOWN MEETINGS THIS COMMUNITY HAS EVER HAD. AND UNFORTUNATELY, THAT BUDGET OVERRIDE DID NOT PASS AT THE BALLOT. And as a result, we've had to make some really, really hard decisions, including laying people off and really tightening our belts. And unfortunately, that financial situation has not improved significantly. What we have done as a leadership team in working with Kristen, our town manager, is to try to find as many efficiencies as we can to try to make our budget dollars go as far as they can. And Kristen's gonna go into that with a presentation that she has following my remarks. and we continue to look for avenues to increase growth and to bring more revenue into this community so that we can all enjoy the things that we want to enjoy including health insurance including you know salaries that are commensurate with our benchmark communities um but still you know keep our buildings functioning keep our police staffed well, our fire department staffed well, make sure that we have fire trucks and things of that nature. There's so many competing priorities, it's very difficult to satisfy all of them. One of the things that we've been doing when we've been looking at these efficiencies is following the playbook, if you will, that came out of the budget task force effort. This group did a multi-month deep dive into every area of Westford's town government, including the schools, and looked at how we could do things better. And if you want, that report is on the town website. It's actually a good read. And we've gone through and tried to tackle a number of the recommendations that were made in that task force's report. And one of those is to look at health insurance. To start that initiative off, we engaged an independent consultant to do a review of our current health insurance operations. That came back to us earlier this year. And since then, we've been having discussions about how do we need to make some changes in order to try to right-size the health insurance offerings so that they are commensurate with, again, our benchmark communities. and to implement these changes in a way that matches our budget needs to some degree. And I will say that we have had to work at a pace faster than we're all comfortable with. However, we have learned that we have some more time. We have some more options. And as part of the presentation that Kristen's giving after I'm done, she's gonna talk about the new timeline that we're going to be potentially utilizing to do this health insurance review. And hopefully that will give us some more time to sort of reset. figure out where we're going to go with a more thoughtful process than what we had previously established or used. So with that, I'm going to just take a quick pause. I'm going to just turn to my fellow select board members. Is there any comments from the board before I turn it over to Kristen that you want to make?

I think most of the comments I have are in what you just said. Hi, Tom Clay. I was just going to say that I think most of the comments I have are either you've already made them or they're in Kristen's report, so I'm good.

Same. Thank you.

Okay, so with that, I'm going to turn the mic over to Kristen Lass. Here's our town manager, and she's going to give the presentation that hopefully we can all view up on the screen. And thank you very much for your time. Do you want to use this mic?

All right, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for those of you who are in the room here at Stony Brook and on Zoom. Also, we have WCAT here who is taping this. This is not live stream this evening, but you will be able to access the video likely tomorrow or over the weekend. and the Zoom is being recorded as well that we'll be posting to the town's webpage. We did post this presentation to the packet documents this afternoon, so you may access it there. Also, if you do need a hard copy when you leave, please contact the town manager's office tomorrow and we are happy to get you a copy if you need that. And, oh, I hear there's some more coming as well. I did want to introduce the Assistant Town Manager of Strategic Operations, Mike Edwards, here, and also Dan O'Donnell, our Finance Director. They have been also instrumental in this discussion, as well as our HR Director, Pam Hicks, who is on vacation, and the number of our Health Insurance Trust members, some of who are here today and some who are here online. We have enabled the question and answer function on the Zoom. So if you are not in the room and you do have a question, please type it into that question and answer function. If you're having trouble with that, you can type it into the chat, but we would prefer the question and answer function. I am gonna go through the entire presentation before we take questions and answers because it does flow very nicely and it may answer some of your questions after that. Some of these things that I am going to mention, Chris has said before, but I think it's fine to duplicate those efforts as well.

So let's make sure this works.

All right, so I always like to start a presentation with the overview of what we're going to talk about today. Chris mentioned why we are here. I'm going to dig into that a little bit more. We're going to talk a little bit more about the budget task force report and how that addressed health insurance. We're going to talk about Westford's specific efforts to date related to efficiencies and change. We're going to talk about our overall financial and operational challenges. We're going to talk about health insurance trends that came out of the Lockton report and what we're seeing in the market. We will talk about our market basket comparisons, that is the 20 communities that we compare ourselves related to classification and compensation. We're going to then wind down to talk about where we're going from here, specifically the timeline and then outlining next steps and then giving you all a chance to ask questions and then what the processes for outreach moving forward. So why we are here. So as Chris alluded to, the budget task force report identified health insurance as one of our major structural budget issues and major costs within the town budget. The company locked in was retained through the health insurance trust with the support of the select board back in November of 2025 to independently evaluate our health insurance program in total. Most recently, on July 1st, the Health Insurance Trust voted on a number of items, and the select board reviewed those votes on July 2nd. I'm going to read them, but know that these may change over the course of the presentation. There may be discussions and decisions that may change. So the first vote was to no longer pursue the GIC as a healthcare plan for implementation, effective July 1st, 2027. TO DEFER IMPLEMENTATION OF A GIC LOOK-A-LIKE PLAN OR A BENCHMARK PLAN OF DESIGN CHANGES FOR NOVEMBER 2026 RENEWAL AND ALLOW THE HEALTH INSURANCE TRUST TO REASSESS THAT IN THE SPRING OF 2027. AND TO PURSUE NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE INSURANCE ADVISORY COMMITTEE, DISCUSSIONS WITH THE INSURANCE ADVISORY COMMITTEE AND negotiations with the PEC, Public Employee Committee, towards implementation of a midpoint plan design change intended to take effect November 1st of 2026. We'll talk about that November 1st date in a minute. So based upon further review after these votes took place and conversations with our broker, Hub, and I just want to know our broker, Mark Christoseli from Hub, is on the line. So if there are specific questions about our existing plan design or any changes, he is available to speak to that. He is on the Zoom. We learned that plan adjustments could be made mid-year or mid-cycle. So that is new information that we did not present and were not clear on back at the beginning of July. So now we have a new timeline that is in play that we're going to discuss today. And we want to make sure that further evaluation of plan changes is taking place by the Health Insurance Trust. So digging a little bit deeper into the budget task force report, and if you look at this presentation online, the light blue is a clickable link, so it will bring you right to the budget task force report that was published in October of 2023. That overall report identified town-wide long-term structural deficits that we had. It identified the health insurance as one of our largest financial pressures, estimating $1 to $2 million of budget impact in fiscal 25 and 26. We started fiscal 27 two weeks ago on July 1st, just for context. It identified that the expenses of our partially self-insured plan were far higher than forecasted over the past 12 months, and that was in 2022 to 2023. And the recommendation of that report was to review Westford's health insurance strategy to ensure that it was the most cost-effective course. I WANT TO NOTE THAT THE SELECT BOARD AND THE TOWN STAFF AND OTHER BOARDS AND COMMITTEES ALONG WITH THE FINANCE COMMITTEE AND OTHERS HAVE DONE AN IMMENSE AMOUNT OF WORK SINCE THAT BUDGET TASK FORCE REPORT WAS IMPLEMENTED AND ACCEPTED. WE'VE STARTED TO PAY OFF SMALLER CAPITAL PROJECTS RATHER THAN CARRYING THE DEBT. We've implemented a town-wide centralized fleet fueling for a much less cost than going to the pump at the town of Westford. We've now implemented a self-sustaining recreation enterprise that is no longer subsidized by the general fund. We continue to implement energy efficiency projects utilizing grants, incentives, and net metering credits at no cost to the taxpayer in some instances. We did have a reduction of staff following the unsuccessful override in all areas. We are starting to actively and have been actively auctioning off surplus equipment to backfill our free cash. BACK AT THE SPRING OF 2026 TOWN MEETING, WE ASKED THE TOWN MEETING TO AUTHORIZE TO FILE WITH LEGISLATURE TO CHANGE DIGITAL LEGAL ADS TO RELEASE THE BURDEN ON RESIDENTS AND BUSINESSES WHO ARE FILING FOR PERMITS THAT REQUIRE LEGAL ADS. WE'RE CONTINUING TO SUPPORT OUR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT EFFORTS AND THAT WAS A BUDGET ITEM IN THE FISCAL 27 BUDGET TO CONTINUE TO TRY TO INCREASE OUR REVENUE AND OUR COMMERCIAL TAX BASE. We implemented a pay-as-you-throw hybrid program, partially shifting the cost of the curbside trash services to residents who are using that service. And we continue to look at a town-wide fee review to align fees with the actual cost of providing certain services. So these items hit certain categories. It hits taxpayers, it hits employees, and it hits businesses. So I just want to be cognizant about that. WE ALSO NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT WE HAVE CONTINUOUS TOWNWIDE FINANCIAL AND OPERATIONAL PRESSURES. OUR COSTS ARE RISING FASTER THAN OUR PROJECTED REVENUE GROWTH UNDER PROPOSITION TWO AND A HALF. OUR FISCAL 26 AND 27 BUDGETS RELIED ON PLAN USE OF ONE-TIME FUNDS TO MAINTAIN SERVICES AND THAT WAS PRIMARILY IN THE SCHOOL BUDGET AND THEY LAID OUT A VERY ROBUST PLAN OF HOW THEY WOULD BE SPENDING DOWN THOSE ONE-TIME FEES. Our school transportation expenses and our special education tuition are continuing to increase above that two and a half limit. We see our rising energy, utility, and other operating costs. We continue to need to fund our Middlesex County retirement system liability and that continues to increase as we have many more retirees and that cost is increasing. We want to make sure that our other post employment benefits OPEB funding is strong to maintain our AAA bond rating which ensures that we get the lowest possible interest rate when we're going to borrow for capital projects. We've seen that we've deferred maintenance across our properties and facilities and that has been shown in our town-wide facilities updates that have been discussed. We talked a little bit about that on Tuesday night at the Robinson School Building Committee meeting with the tri-boards. We also continue to prioritize competitive compensation for recruitment and retention. This is a major item that the Select Board identified in our strategic plan that we need to continue to do to ensure that we retain our employees and we recruit active employees and then we are also seeing as we've discussed our health insurance expenses and rising medicare costs and you will see that in a future slide So this slide lays out two things. The red line outlines the percent of our health insurance costs over the percent of our operating budget year over year. On this far side, it starts with fiscal 19 and the other side ends at fiscal 27 because we've budgeted for that. So you will see that our health insurance costs in terms of budget is increasing year over year. We also wanted to make sure that we showed you that in fiscal 22 we implemented the health insurance trust and that trust balance has been growing over time which is a good thing because we are using it to buffer in certain areas and that was identified in the Lockton report that we did have a healthy trust fund balance finally. When we were doing the budget task force report in 2023 our balance was not good at that point in time so we're proud to say that that has increased. What's also telling though is our subscribers. So in the red-orange color is our total of non-Medicare plans, so our active employee plans. And you can see that that is actually decreasing from fiscal 2010 to fiscal 27. Our Medicare subscribers is actually increasing. We have a number of retirees that are increasing. We also have five year trends that are showing that our Medicare costs have risen 13.4% over the past five years. And our non-Medicare costs have increased 7% over that period of time. That is more than the 2.5% that we're allowed to raise through Proposition 2.5. There's been a lot of conversation and a lot of confusion over how we compare ourselves to our market basket, so those 20 communities that we compare ourselves related to compensation and classification. I'm not going to go through everything, but there are three packets online, and I have linked them here. So we have a market basket premium rate and contribution analysis for the active plans. we have our overall annual town contribution rates and then we broke it down to our retiree medicare employee contributions i want to caution you that when you're reviewing this data you should review it as a comprehensive package because if you look at each individual table it tells an individual story but you really should be looking at it comprehensively To summarize these sheets, because there are a lot to look at and it may not be familiar to you, Westford is an outlier in employer contribution percentages, but not in employer spending. So in the employer contribution percentage, we're at the bottom of the market basket. For employer dollar contributions in the HMO and the PPO plans, we're approximately average or slightly below the market. For employee dollar contribution, for the HSA, we are below average. And for the retiree Medicare contribution, we're really in the lower middle of that. We do have one of the most comprehensive plan designs within our market basket, so I want to note that. So where do we go from here and what do we do with all of this data? So we just want to be clear that there have been no plan design changes since the implementation of the trust in 2021. That is actually very uncommon. Many municipalities and many private sector entities or nonprofits are looking at changes every year or every two years. So we have some options to look at. We'd like to see the Health Insurance Trust review a midpoint plan design that was discussed at the last trust meeting and discussed at the select board meeting on July 2nd. We do still want to identify and look into a benchmark lookalike plan. We want to look at our fund balance and potentially targeted drawdown to alleviate general fund implementation into the Health Insurance Trust. We wanted to create a fund to balance policy. When the health insurance trust was implemented, it was noted that we should have about a 3.5 to $7.3 million balance. Now that we've had a trust for over five years, it's prudent to look at what that targeted fund balance should be and create a policy. And there may be other alternatives that we have not thought of. And I know one of the frequently asked questions we got was, can we submit other alternatives? Please do. And I know some of you have. And then we will likely begin negotiations if anything comes out of that health insurance trust meeting under Mass General Law Chapter 32, Section 21 and 22. That may sound foreign to you. We do have more information on the website, but that is the general law through the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on how health insurance is changed and negotiated in the public sector. SO THIS SLIDE MAY BE SLIGHTLY DIFFICULT TO READ IN THE ROOM. AGAIN, IT IS ONLINE AND WE CAN GET YOU ADDITIONAL PACKETS. AND IT TALKS ABOUT A TIMELINE. AND NOW THAT WE'VE FOUND THAT WE COULD DO A MID-PLAN ADJUSTMENT, WE HAVE DEVELOPED A TIMELINE FOR A POTENTIAL ADJUSTMENT FOR MAY, EXCUSE ME, MARCH 1ST OF 2027. IT IS NOT CLEAR IF THIS WOULD BE AN ACTIVE EMPLOYEE ONLY OR A RETIREE ONLY OR A COMBINATION CHANGE AT THIS POINT IN TIME. THAT NEEDS TO BE INVESTIGATED AND REVIEWED BY THE HEALTH INSURANCE TRUST, SO I WANT TO BE CLEAR ABOUT THAT. WE ARE CURRENTLY UNDER NUMBER ONE, SO JUNE 2ND TO JULY 24TH. WE'RE MODELING OPTIONS, WE'RE CALCULATING SAVINGS, AND WE'RE PREPARING FOR POTENTIAL MITIGATION, AND I WILL TALK ABOUT THAT IN A FUTURE SLIDE. July 24th to August 7th, we anticipate that the Health Insurance Trust will meet and will review and potentially endorse a plan change proposal. I have called for Health Insurance Trust meeting for next Thursday, July 30th. If we can get all the members together or most of the members together, you'll be notified of that meeting and of course, welcome to attend. Between August 7th and August 21st, if the health insurance trust comes up with a plan, the select board would vote to enter into negotiations, which would be led by the town manager. And then August 21st to August 28th would be step five, where there'd be formal PEC notice, so public employee committee, including proposed changes, savings, and a mitigation plan. And then step six, August 31st to September 30th would be that 30-day negotiation window for the PEC. And that is a state law. That is not something that the town of Westford has made up. If we can come to an agreement, if there are changes proposed with the PEC by that point in time, there would be a vote by October 9th. There would be final local approval in terms of a contract by December 15th and a written agreement. And then there would be a 60 day notification period. If there is not an agreement, Mass General Law has an appeal process to a state board, and that review process takes between 30 to 60 days. The review panel would make their decision, and then if there is an implementation, that would follow. But both of these paths would contemplate a March 1st change, if possible. So I want to talk a little bit about mitigation. So this may be a foreign term to some of you, but if a municipality is contemplating plan design changes, they are required by state law to negotiate with the PEC a mitigation for those who may be impacted by the changes that are proposed. I'm not going to read the entire slide, but some examples are a health reimbursement agreement, some wellness programs, a health care trust fund, which we actually have, out-of-pocket caps, other qualified medical expenses, and health insurance premium holidays. We are not required to give a mitigation package over 25% of the savings that the town of Westford would see if there is a change. So I want to be clear about that. So I'm wrapping up here. So if you're thinking of questions, now's the time to get those ready. Next steps, we wanna continue public engagement. I will admit from my standpoint, we may not have done the best job engaging our employees and our retirees and the public related to this. I see this action today as a reset to gain trust and confidence that we want to educate you all. We want to provide as much information as we can in a clear and concise manner, and we want to receive your input. Again, we want to receive your feedback. Stay in contact with your IAC and PEC representatives if you're an employee or a retiree. Just in case you're not aware, I did just this week name Jody Ross as the retiree IAC representative. Marilyn Frank, thank you so much for your service over the years. She did resign a few months ago, but the retirees now do have an IAC and PEC representative. Thank you, Jody. And there will be future... Like I said before, there'll be future trust and select board meetings and all of those are in public, open to all of you and are posted. And if you need or want to email the town manager's office, we have that email listed here or the select board, feel free to do so. So with that, I'm gonna turn it back over to chairperson Barrett and Mike Edwards is going to monitor the question and answer. So I'll leave it to you, Chris.

All right, thank you very much, Kristen, for that comprehensive presentation. I'm sure there was a lot of acronyms, though, that were thrown around. And if you do have any questions on those, again, please put them in the chat if you're on the, sorry, the question and answer portion of Zoom. And obviously, you can ask today. Two questions actually for me to you, Kristen. And one is, you did highlight or mention that we have stumbled a little bit with our communications. So with this new timeline and the expectation of a number of future meetings, could you just go a little bit more into detail on how folks can be notified that meetings are going to occur and sign up for any sort of email distribution list that we may be maintaining at this point so that you can be as involved as possible?

Absolutely. So if you're comfortable with the website, you can sign up under the notify me tab for select board meetings and health insurance trust meetings. We do have a healthy email list right now for retirees. But if you are not on that list, please contact your retiree association, whether it's MTRS or Middlesex. and they will get you on that list and we will update that as well. We are trying to do as much on social media, posting these meetings as well, or following along for the Health Insurance Trust website or the Select Board website. So we are doing our best to get the word out. I know not everybody can access those ways. Even if you have a question and you wanna understand that, contact our office, we're happy to help. So one logistic thing, when we do open it up to questions and answers, I'm gonna put the microphone here. If you are able-bodied to come up to the microphone, we'd really appreciate it because the owl is picking up the Zoom for people who are on the Zoom to listen. If you are not able-bodied, just raise your hand. We're happy to walk a mic to you and we may just repeat the question if those at home can't reach it. But if you have any other questions, Chris, that you want me to answer, happy to do that.

YEAH, THANK YOU VERY MUCH, KRISTEN. I THINK ONE OF THE THINGS THAT I TOOK AWAY FROM THE NUMBER OF EMAILS THAT WE RECEIVED, AND I BELIEVE THAT NUMBER WAS OVER, WELL OVER 100, SO AGAIN, THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR TAKING THE TIME TO DRAFT THOSE EMAILS. IT REALLY MEANT A LOT TO ME AND I'M SURE TO MY FELLOW BOARD MEMBERS AS WELL AS TOWN STAFF THAT YOU TOOK THE TIME TO DO THAT. But one of the things that I took away was, what is this gonna mean to me? How is it going to affect my deductibles or my premiums? So Kristen, I know this is difficult, but with the timeline that we just sort of unveiled, at what point do you, this is a guesstimate to some degree, please be in mind, keep that in mind. But when do you think people will be able to get answers to questions like that?

Sure. So we have initially worked with HUB on what some plan design changes may potentially look like and what it may look like for a low user of the plan, a medium user of the plan, and a high user of the plan. So that information is out there, but we need to do a better job boiling it down for you. unfortunately because health insurance is so personal and everybody's situation is so different we can't put up a calculator for you to plug in what your situation is like we did for the override just to plug in your ta in your home so you could see you know if your taxes were going up or not so we will do our best to try to take a low user a medium user and a high user and balance that out and model that out and we'll work with HUB on some other modeling because they are familiar with doing this with other municipalities as well.

Okay, thank you Kristen. First, is there any questions from the rest of the board here? Are we ready to hear from the public? Okay, fantastic. So I know we have a number of questions online. Why don't we take one right now and then again if you're interested in asking a question, you're here in this room, please come down to this mic and queue in this corridor or raise your hand and we can bring a mic to you. So why don't I pass that?

So the first question comes from an anonymous attendee. I know a few years ago the town used to go out to bid on different insurance companies to see which would offer the best rates. Is there a possibility to do that again? Some of the documents make it seem like Blue Cross Blue Shield is the only option. Westford is a large customer of theirs, and I think they would reduce their premiums if they knew they could lose us as a customer if we were shopping around for better deals.

So, Mark, could you discuss from your standpoint as our broker about how you do go out to bid each year when we're in the renewal period?

Sure. In the past, at Westford, we have looked at other alternatives, keeping in mind that Westford is now on what the insurance world would call a self-insured plan. So approximately 85% of all your costs have really nothing to do with Blue Cross Blue Shield or Harvard or Mass General or Cigna or Aetna, that 85% cost of the plan are direct reimbursements to health care providers and to pharmacists. So what's left over to negotiate on is about 15%. Roughly. So roughly about 6-7% is what actually goes to Blue Cross Blue Shield for administration. So that's what gets paid to them to do what they do, negotiate discounts, administer claims and everything else. And then the other balance of that is for stop-loss insurance. So that's the actual insurance. We do have some insurance, even though we're self-insured. So we have a very large deductible that the town self-insures. And then above that deductible, there's a separate stop-loss insurance company that pays anything above that. So at the end of the day, when you're negotiating discounts from carriers, you're really negotiating on 15% of the overall cost. So just kind of simple math, if we were able to find a claims administrator and a stop-loss carrier to be 10% below what your recurring fixed costs are, that would be about 1.5% of the overall cost of your carrier. And not that a little 1.5%, but we certainly have looked at different third-party administrators out there, and some things administrators charge less than we possibly should. And from a stop-loss insurance standpoint, that's something we put out the bid to 20 carriers every year to try to find the very best stop-loss. Just to give you a little color on the stop-loss insurance, I'd say over the past four years, the insurance carriers probably paid out in excess of a million dollars in claims, and they've taken an increase.

Thanks, Mark. I think we're going to move on to the next question.

Anybody in person? Why don't we just keep going through it? Okay.

All right, so next question comes from Janet Dubner. Are you committed to ensure that retirees who have moved out of state will still be able to access Westford's insurance coverage? That's an emphatic yes. Okay. Next question coming online from Jesse Beyer. Being that the data shows we rank at the bottom in contribution percentage and below mid in actual dollars the town contributes, I'm curious why the select board is asking employees to absorb more of this burden. The data clearly shows the town should be doing more, not less. So it's disappointing that it appears the decision is being made independent of the data. What is going to happen if a switch is made and we fall to the bottom of our peers?

Okay, thank you, Jesse, for that question. I don't know if I'm the, Kristen, do you want to take this? Nope? Okay. John wants to take it. Very good.

I'm happy to take a step.

So it took me a while to go through all these numbers and feel like I've got a good grip on it. So absolutely right that the town gives 35%, supports 35%, which is at the low end. But if you look at the dollars, I don't know if we're bringing that up or not. But if you look at the dollars in the report, you can pull it up. We're very, very close to the average of what the town pays on behalf of you. So the policy is actually a richer policy. It's a little bit more expensive. So we have a smaller percentage. But the actual dollars that we pay are very, very close to the average within our market basket. So we're close in there. Why are we even considering this at all? Well, I think the answer to that might be in the slide that looks at the percent of budget. so when we look at long-term planning for the town and we look at things that are rising faster than two and a half percent are consuming more and more budget dollars we feel like we have to take a look at those and see if there are steps that we can take reasonably together in partnership that will help us sort of over the long term remain within our our sort of budget uh capacity And so I think the numbers show that we pay about 50% more in healthcare now than we did in 2019, so it's a big jump. I think it's 11% of our budget instead of 9%, something like that. So it's continuing to grow, and so just like we do with every other uh... spending category in town we want to make sure we're looking carefully to see if there's some adjustments that we can make to still have a reasonable plan but but help us over the long term make sure that we're not eating into other critical services with with any with any uh... expense category that we deal with and that was the finding of the budget task force was we need to look at those things over time if we don't tend that garden over time and they continue to consume more and more resource it's less Teachers, fewer firefighters, fewer other public service that we're able to offer here in town. So that's why we feel like we have to take this reasonable look.

Any other comments from the board on that question?

Because I think that this is brought up a lot, right? Sorry, Sean Kelly from the select board. Also the select board appointee to the health insurance trust. I'm acutely aware that we rank low on the employer contribution rate. It's 35% where most of our peer communities are about 30%. Health insurance is tremendously complicated, right? And there are certain levers that you can pull that can change behavior and save costs, right? One of those is if you make adjustments to a plan, you can, in theory, actually reduce overall premiums, right? So by instituting things like co-pays and deductibles, things of that nature, you can CHANGE BEHAVIOR OF THE USERS TO PREVENT, LET'S SAY, COSTLY EMERGENCY VISITS, THINGS LIKE THAT, IF THERE'S A DEDUCTIBLE ASSOCIATED WITH IT. THAT CAN ALSO RESULT IN LOWER OVERALL PREMIUMS. AND THE IDEA IS, I THINK WHAT'S GETTING LEFT OUT IS IF THERE IS A PLAN DESIGN CHANGE, THIS WILL RESULT IN LOWER PREMIUMS FOR a lot of people, a lot of people who are current users and partake in our health plan. I think that's getting lost on it because one of the things that I often hear from our employees is that our current insurance model is too expensive even for them, right? So we could, by making plan design changes, actually reduce the premium. IN AN IDEAL WORLD, AND I CAN'T SPEAK FOR MY COLLEAGUES, BUT I WOULD LOVE TO SEE US BE ABLE TO REDUCE THE PREMIUMS AND THEN UP THE EMPLOYER CONTRIBUTION. AND I DON'T THINK THAT THOSE TWO THINGS ARE INCONSISTENT. AND I THINK IT'S SOMETHING THAT WE CAN DO LONG TERM, BUT WE FIRST NEED TO START MAKING PLAN DESIGN CHANGES. SO I THINK THAT WE CAN SAVE THE TOWN MONEY, AND THAT WE CAN ALSO OFFER A PLAN THAT'S MAYBE NOT AS ROBUST, BUT HAS A LOWER PREMIUM.

Sean, thank you very much for those comments. And I want to say, we have a 56% or a 54% enrollment. Is that about right? 56% of our employees take advantage of our health insurance options now. We do have somebody at the mic. So why don't we go to you, sir? We've got a mic there. Good. I'm sorry. If you would, just please let us know your name and address so we have it for the record. Thank you.

I got you. Tyler Butts, I work for the highway department. Just hearing that we're low in percentage contribution, but the dollars is even, all that really says to me is if it changes, it's going to punish the people who actually use it, and those are the people who need it the most. So am I wrong in that, or am I picking that up correctly?

I mean, I can take a stab at that. We do have Mark from Ob on it, but at our last health insurance trust meeting, Mark indicated that plan design changes would cost, it would result in more out-of-pocket expenses for 60 or two-thirds percent of users, whereas one-third percent of users would have overall cost savings. So, yes, if you're a high user of it, it's going to cost more.

From my recollection, it was around $2,000 from the high users. I just feel like that's not right. Sure. Shouldn't be punishing people for using it and contributing, either retirees, portions of their lives, and for employees, portions of our day. And it just sucks. Thank you.

We have another question in the queue here, so why don't we take one and then we'll get to the mic.

Thanks, Chris. So from Larry Pinero, the Water Enterprise Fund allocated a significant amount of funds for post-retirement benefit costs, so there should be plenty of funds available to cover the Water Department retiree post-benefit expenses, and these costs do not impact the town's deficits. The Water Department retiree should be excluded from any changes.

So if there are changes, it affects all in the group, right? We're not going to exclude if you're a water department employee or not. I'd like to ask Dan to answer the question if he knows the answer about the enterprise and the contributions to health insurance.

So the Water Enterprise OPEB fund, which is the other post-employment benefits, including health insurance for the Water Enterprise, was fully funded years ago. It kind of serves as a model for how we want our general fund OPEB account to work in the future. However, as I understand it, all of our plan changes are the same throughout the entire town, for town and schools.

Okay, well, let's take you at the mic, please.

Thank you. Melanie Jezokas, 26 year, teacher at Westford Academy. I just had, and I think I'm echoing what this young gentleman said about discouraging people from seeking help if they need it. Because, Sean, it sounded like two-thirds of people may have that. PREMIUM INCREASE OR ESPECIALLY IF WE'RE GOING WITH DEDUCTIBLES NOW. I THINK THAT'S MY BIGGEST CONCERN IS THAT PEOPLE WON'T SEEK THE HELP THAT THEY NEED. AND I KNOW AT LEAST IN THE SCHOOLS WE TALK ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH ALL THE TIME WITH STUDENTS AND STAFF. AND THAT I THINK CONCERNS ME OVERALL IS THAT PEOPLE JUST WON'T SEEK THE HELP OR THE TREATMENT THAT THEY NEED IF So I guess it's not really a question. It's more of a statement. And I wasn't sure how the low user, medium user, and high user was going to be kind of detailed out, but I think that question was answered. So, yeah, I would just have you think about that. That would be great. Thanks.

Great. Thank you for your comments. Why don't we take another one from the queue?

Sure. Anonymous attendee writes, can you please explain exactly how the retirees will be impacted? In some communication, it sounded like the retiree coverage was being discontinued.

So the retiree coverage is absolutely not going to be discontinued. We're not going to be even looking at that right now. With this reset, we are looking at both the active plans and the retiree plans, and we'll present those potential changes if that occurs. So we do not have that clearly right now, but there will not be an elimination of a retiree plan.

Thank you, Kristen. Why don't you go ahead, sir?

Tim Hall, 51 North Street, retiree. I have a couple of questions. One is where do we rank with those 20 towns as far as percentages? I know that you said we're on the lower side, but what is the average? Is it 75-25? Is it 80-20? That's my first question.

Okay, why don't we just take that first question. So as Kristen alluded to earlier with her presentation, we do have this information on the town website. There's at least 18 pages of comparison data ranging from the employee and the town's contributions to the premium cost. Did we ever get the deductible information in there as well? No, that is not. That will be coming in a future iteration. So there's at least two or three ways that this can be looked at, depending on which plans that you use and whether or not you're using a family versus you're a single consumer. So to go over that in a lot of detail here is probably outside the scope of this meeting, but it is available to you to consume. And if you have questions, I would recommend talking with the town manager's office. Okay, thank you.

My second question is, coming in here today, I did bump into a couple of employees from the school department, and I want to know if, I know Pam Hicks and Kristen has made good efforts to make sure that the communication, but these people told me that nobody's heard of it. So where Pam is the head of HR here with the town side, The assistant superintendent is the head of the HR side for the schools, which is also the biggest employee base and the biggest retiree base. Are they making sure that their notifications are getting out there as well?

Thank you. I can tell you that Pam Hicks sent an email to all town and school employees two weeks ago. I did as well earlier this week. I understand that not all school employees are checking their email because it is summertime. So I did get a lot of automatic replies that they were out of the office. Courtney Moran was aware of this meeting. I am not aware if she had any additional outreach to the teachers. I can't answer that question.

It's not just

Sorry, I do not know if Courtney had any additional correspondence with the additional staff.

Again, that was a great question. And we definitely know that communication is a challenge, not just on this issue, but with a lot of things that the town does. And we're continuing to look to improve our avenues to get out the word to the residents and retirees in this case. I WILL SAY THAT WITH THIS NEW TIMELINE, A LOT OF THE ACTION, SO TO SPEAK, WILL START TO TAKE PLACE WHEN SCHOOL IS BACK IN SESSION, SO I THINK THAT COMMUNICATION CHALLENGE MIGHT LESSEN A LITTLE BIT, BUT WE REMAIN 100% COMMITTED TO IMPROVE COMMUNICATION LEVELS TO THE BEST THAT WE ARE ABLE. I MEAN, THAT IS 100% SOMETHING THAT THIS BOARD HAS BEEN BEHIND FROM THE TIME THAT I'VE BEEN THERE, AND THIS PARTICULAR SITUATION IS NO EXCEPTION, AND IT ACTUALLY PROVES THAT, YOU KNOW, WE STILL NEED TO DO BETTER. We appreciate your patience, and we are going to try to do better in the future with communication. Why don't we take a question from the queue?

Hang on one second, Captain. So just a follow-up from Jesse Beyer. My original question is in regards to actual dollars the town contributes. In several cases, we are even below our GIC community peers in what the town contributes. The slide shows below mid, already before changes. Not really a question there, but Jesse, thank you for the follow-up.

Okay, thank you, Jesse.

Next at the mic. Hi, my name is Brandon Holmes. I'm a town resident and work for the police department. My question is we've already, the health insurance trust has voted to move $950,000 back over to the town fund and we're projected to save over a million dollars from reducing GLP-1s from our coverage. That's almost $2 million. Is there a target budget line that you're looking to save? like an end goal or is it just overall? I just was curious on how deep we're looking to go on the savings side. Thank you.

That's a great question. I think at this point we are not able to give a hard number. We recognize or we are aware at this point that we are potentially facing significant budget challenges for FY28. That is still quite some time away and we're gonna see some changes in our projections between now and then. But we do know that that is a fairly substantial deficit at this time. So we are looking to save wherever we can. Do we have any other questions?

Ellen Rainerville, the library director. And insurance is not my favorite reading genre. I have found that out. So I have some comments. I think that employees now are under the impression that as we move employees on that side of the ledger closer to the market basket, we aren't seeing what equal action is being taken on the town side of the ledger. So if there could be a consideration of the town paying a higher percentage as we absorb non-pre-tax non-predictable costs in terms of co-pays and in terms of deductibles. I think most of us would agree that would be the fair thing to the employees. On the face of it, when I read the 170 pages and everything else, it seemed like we had a comprehensive plan that was costly. But because employees were paying such a high percentage, we were getting what we paid for. So I'm glad to hear for the first time that the actual cost that the town pays is average, because I don't think I saw that data. And I also never saw the data of how many subscribers were in the insurance plans of other towns. So for example, I couldn't compute what the cost per subscriber was from community to community. I did go down another rabbit hole to see if everyone in the GIC had a AAA bond rating, and they don't. And I would wonder if joining the GIC would impact our bond rating. I also respectfully ask us not to talk about transferring costs to employees as an efficiency. We don't see it as an efficiency. We see it as a migrated cost that we're being asked to assume. And finally, and I know this is not always popular when I bring this up, but I'm an old feminist, so I'm going to say it. My mother sent me the first issue of Ms. Magazine when I was in college. When I look at your demographics of those of us who are being covered by health insurance, it's predominantly female. I looked at age. I looked at gender. So I just want to remind us, you know, as we are aging into the retirement group, we have an age that's more associated with illness. women have earned only 82 cents for every dollar of males they are likely to live longer they are likely to outlive their spouses and so i am also concerned as a female about the cost to the women who are retiring out of the town

Thank you for that feedback, Ellen. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Ellen. I just had two questions. My name is Jennifer Clairo, and I work as the director of the Cameron Senior Center. When you were doing the market basket, I was just wondering, did you look at the other benefits that the other towns were providing, such as short-term disability, dental, vision, long-term disability? Because I know that's something that we're having to absorb on top of our premiums. CAN ANYBODY SPEAK TO THAT?

JENNIFER, I CAN HELP ANSWER THAT. SO THIS MARKET BASKET COMPARISON IS PURELY HEALTH INSURANCE. WE HAVE HAD A DISCUSSION WITH HUB TO REVIEW THE MARKET BASKET RELATED TO THOSE OTHER INSURANCES. THEY ARE WORKING ON IT, BUT IT DOES TAKE TIME BECAUSE THERE ARE SO MANY INTRICACIES. SO WE DO ANTICIPATE EVENTUALLY BEING ABLE TO PRESENT THAT DATA. OKAY.

AND THEN MY FOLLOW-UP QUESTION WOULD BE, YOU KNOW, ON YOUR LONG-TERM PLANNING. What other revenue analysis are you doing outside of health insurance that we haven't heard about today? I know we're focusing a lot on health insurance. Are there some other new revenue ideas that you have outside of health insurance?

I can answer that, Chris, if that's okay. YES, THERE ARE A NUMBER OF OTHER ITEMS THAT WE ARE PURSUING RELATED TO REVENUE GENERATION. IF YOU ATTENDED TOWN MEETING OR HAVE BEEN FOLLOWING ALONG, THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE AND THE LAND USE MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT IS ACTIVELY PURSUING additional businesses and understanding how we can grow our commercial base. We recently completed two corridor studies that speak to that. We know that we will have additional new growth in the coming years related to the permitted projects at 219 Littleton Road, the former Westford Regency and 37 Powers Road. We know that comes with additional services needed with police and fire and potential schools, but there will be new growth potential there. And there are other things that we're working on related to revenue. I noted in the presentation we're going to be, we have started and going to continue a full fee analysis and understanding where those fees may hit. Is it a business owner? Is it a resident? Is it somewhere else? So that's just a brief menu of some of the things that we're working on. So hopefully that helps.

And just one more thing to add. This has come up in the past, not necessarily specific to this topic, but just in general to taxes. So we do have a new working group that's looking at how Westford apportions its tax rates across residential, commercial, industrial. That group started a few, probably now about six or seven weeks ago. They're feverishly trying to get that analysis done. SO A LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE COME TO US AND SAID, HEY, WHY DON'T WE HAVE A SPLIT TAX RATE, FOR EXAMPLE, OR OTHER TYPES OF PROGRAMS THAT HELP EASE THE BURDEN ON, SAY, MAYBE SENIOR CITIZENS THAT ARE RESIDENTS OF THIS COMMUNITY. SO PLEASE KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR THE RESULTS OF THAT EFFORT, BECAUSE I DO THINK IT WILL BE HELPFUL FOR ANSWERING SOME QUESTIONS THAT I'VE SEEN POSED IN SOME OF THE EMAILS THAT WE'VE GOTTEN. THE OTHER THING THAT I JUST WANTED TO JUST POINT OUT IS, AND THIS IS RELATED, ELLEN, TO YOUR QUESTION, MIKE, CAN YOU JUST HOLD UP THAT BLUE CHART? I BELIEVE THAT'S PART OF THE PACKET. AND THIS IS WHAT WE'VE SORT OF BEEN TALKING ABOUT IN TERMS OF THE MARKET BASKET COMPARISON. YOU CAN KIND OF SEE HOW THICK IT IS. SO THIS IS WHAT'S GOING TO ALLOW US TO VISUALLY ALLOW YOU ALL AS WELL TO VISUALLY SEE WHERE WE ARE FOR THE DIFFERENT PLANS, AGAIN, THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF ANALYSIS, BEING WHETHER IT'S CONTRIBUTION ANALYSIS OR CONTRIBUTION PERCENTAGE OR PREMIUM, AND THAT'S GOING TO GO AND BE BROKEN DOWN BY BOTH FAMILY AND SINGLE-USER PLANS. SO A LOT OF RICH DATA THERE FOR YOU TO CONSUME. AND IF YOU HAVE, AGAIN, ANY QUESTIONS, TOWN MANAGER'S OFFICE OR ANY OF THE SELECT BOARD MEMBERS WOULD WELCOME THOSE QUESTIONS. DO WE HAVE ANY OTHER? WE DO HAVE SOME MORE QUESTIONS COME IN. SO, YEAH.

grows another thing. It's a long-term structural issue.

I'm going to give that to you.

Tom Clay again, just another example, Ellen, of places that we're looking at addressing long term structural challenges. So pay as you throw came out of that effort. It was recommended as something to look at by the budget task force. The idea was, how do we cost share, basically the residents in this case, to make sure that over a long period of time, we're not spending more and more on trash at the expense of first responders, teachers, and all the other valuable services that we have. If you have the time and interest, you could look in the budget task force. That actually gives a long list of revenue source things that we investigate. Some of them we've already done, some of them are pending, but lots of effort there and an important thing for us to be focused on.

Thank you, Tom, for that additional context. All right, we're going to take another question from our queue.

There's a comment first I'll just read from an anonymous attendee. Not all employees have Westford K-12 or WestfordMA.gov emails. There's a pool of employees who were not notified of this meeting. Have employees go look for information rather than pushing it out as putting the burden on the employees.

So if that is the case, if you could contact TMAA at westfordma.gov with that information, we would like to put you on our email list. Also, please sign up for notifications. I was not aware of that, so thank you for making that comment this evening, and we will do our best to get you on a list.

We can certainly reach out to the schools and make sure we're taking advantage of every opportunity to reach people. He did mention that the school maintains a list of emails for employees that do not have access to town or school emails. So we'll reach out to Courtney and Dr. Chu and make sure we take advantage of that. We're We are taking every opportunity we can, but we have to know how to get in touch with people. We have posted flyers. We have put things in break rooms, locker rooms, restrooms, etc. So social media, we're doing everything we can, but you can help us get the information out if you can feed it to us how we can get in touch with people. So thank you.

So Mark, I see that you're maybe waiting in the wings. Do you want us to take some more questions? Okay. All right. Go ahead.

So next question from Nate McKinnon. Isn't it true that the report to the town indicated that Westford had the highest total cost per employees for the HMO plan compared to all other communities? The HMO accounts for 59% of our total enrollees. This report indicates that for our most subscribed plan, we pay more for individual and family plans than all other communities. Given this, what is the source of information that we're paying average?

SO WE'RE JUST PULLING THE PAGE NUMBER FROM THE REPORT. SO, MIKE, IF YOU CAN FIND IT AND GIVE ME THE PAGE NUMBER.

SO PAGES 7 AND 8.

OKAY, SO WE ARE LOOKING AT, IF YOU'RE LOOKING AT THE PACKET, THE MARKET BASKET CONTRIBUTION RATES AND MONTHLY CONTRIBUTIONS. PAGES 7 AND 8 OUT OF 28. THAT SHOWS THAT WESTFORD IS BELOW AN EMPLOYER DOLLAR AMOUNT CONTRIBUTION FOR SINGLE. AN HMO EMPLOYER CONTRIBUTION FAMILY, WESTFORD IS ALSO BELOW MARKET BASKET. THE PREMIUM, TOTAL PREMIUM. YES.

Just give us a second to see if we can bring that up on the screen here.

So this is a 28-page PDF, Market Basket Premium Rate and Contribution Analysis. It goes through HMO, PPO, HSA. This particular file does not include retiree, but retiree is a separate file. So the HMO employer contribution percent for single, Westford is going to be in green. I'm gonna decrease this a little bit just so you can see the chart. Westford is at the lowest at 60%. HMO employer contribution percent family. Westford is towards the bottom at 65%. HMO employee contribution percent single. Westford is at the top. HMO employee contribution percent family. Westford is towards the top. HMO full monthly premium for the single employee. There's two HMO plans. There's a high and a low, and those are in green. Just tell me when to stop. HMO monthly full premium for a family towards the top. HMO employer contribution.

Okay, since Krista did mention this is 28 pages, just a show of hands, we'd be happy to go through the rest of these slides, but if people are not interested and just want to look at this data on their own, we'll let them do that. I think we've answered the point that Nate made. I'm not seeing any hands, so why don't we move on to the next question? Looks like Mark's not at the stand, so we'll just keep rolling through these. Go ahead.

So Larry Panaro again writes, has the town ever considered to change the tax rate for businesses? Currently they pay the same rate as the residential rate.

So the town did have a study committee, I believe in 2010, that reviewed that and they decided not to change it. Every year in November, the select board hears from the chief assessor and they hold a tax classification hearing to decide if they would change the rate or not. Right now, as Chris alluded to, or others on the select board alluded to, there is another study committee looking at the tax rate related to residential and commercial splits. It would shift the burden to the businesses off the residential. The amount that we raise stays the same. We can only raise by 2.5% plus new growth.

Okay, we now have somebody at the mic. Let's turn it over to this gentleman. Please let us know who you are.

Mark Cost, Chair of the Finance Committee for a long time, member of the Select Board, and Chair of the Capital Committee forever. First of all, thank you for acknowledging the communication issues, not only with the Select Board, but I have to admit also with the Health Insurance Trust. IN INFORMING THE PUBLIC ABOUT WHAT WAS HAPPENING, WHEN IT WAS HAPPENING, AND FEELING LIKE IT WAS RUSHED TO GET A JOB DONE. AND I'M GLAD TO HEAR THAT SOME OF THESE CHANGES HAVE AT LEAST BEEN DEFERRED. SECOND OF ALL, THE ISSUE OF OUR EXPENSES RISING MORE THAN PROP TWO AND A HALF ARE NOT NEW. IT'S BEEN GOING ON AT LEAST SINCE 2008 WHEN I STARTED get involved, this has been an ongoing issue. So this is not new, it's not new to the schools, it's not new to the town departments, and it's certainly not new as it relates to health insurance. Lastly, so these are more comments than questions, which is probably not a surprise to you. First of all, Chris, thanks for acknowledging the 100 plus emails. I'm sure most of those were from me, if not all. Making decisions about health insurance costs outside of a budget process seems completely incoherent to me. To do this and not have the taxpayers in town understand the other choices that could be made outside of the costs of changing people's health insurance costs seems completely incoherent. wrong. So I would encourage you. I saw these down. I was hoping to hear nothing was happening this fall, but to see that some things could still happen this fall outside of the taxpayer understanding what's happened into their costs going into next fiscal. I don't understand that. So I'd ask you to reconsider the timeline. Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much for those comments, Mark. We do have some additional copies of the presentation and meeting material. So if you're still looking for that, just raise your hand and this gentleman here will bring them over to you. Okay. We have plenty more questions. Okay. We have somebody else at the mic, so why don't we go ahead and take you, and then we'll get to our online questions.

Hi, my name is Carrie Ann Wilkins. I'm in my 13th year at Blanchard Middle School. It's more of a, I just wanted to see if you can comment on the survey that went out to the employees, because I'm not sure if everybody heard that. I did hear it at the trustee meeting a couple months ago, but I did hear, I thought that those answers were really interesting, and I think that we should take that into consideration a lot when we're talking about employee retention since you were talking about employee retention being really really important um and i just want to take into consideration like the way that the employees are feeling about this because it seemed like those are really high numbers um in that survey so i didn't know if you might be able to share some of those numbers with everybody

So I can comment that we did send out a survey last summer and fall. I unfortunately don't have those numbers in front of me now, but they are posted. We're able to get them to you if you need. And those were taken into consideration when Lockton prepared their report. If you have any other specific questions, I'm happy to talk with you about that.

i just think it's important to say like employees you know in order to retain employees and we have a lot of employees and they're hoping that the insurance stays similar to what we have um i just think that's an important thing to take into consideration um just getting people in as employees you know getting new employees in and retaining what we already have the insurance is a huge

Sure. So she's just talking about the survey results. She wants to make sure that people understand that employees were mostly satisfied with the health insurance and want to maintain what they have now, which I understand. Thank you very much.

Take a question from online. From Ed Colby, can you please share with the retiree population the links to the online webinar materials as well as the various select board reports you've referenced today? They are all currently shared on the town's website in a few places. One on the Health Insurance Trust website linked directly, but also you can go to the document center and find the individual packet items. So everything is posted if you have any trouble finding that. please feel free to email or call our office.

Did you have a point?

I just had a quick question.

So I know that we sent, we pushed out notice of this meeting. I'm wondering if we could just push out to everyone who we have access to a link to these materials just to save them the trouble of hunting and pecking through the website. We did already. Okay. Thank you.

Tom, thank you very much for that comment. I do want to also add, this is obviously a topic of interest for lots of people. I think maybe if we could make an effort to put something on the homepage so people aren't trying to navigate to find it, especially people who are not familiar with our website. Let's see if we can make it a little bit easier for folks to get to this information.

AND WE CAN ABSOLUTELY, AGAIN, IN REFERENCE TO THAT GENTLEMAN'S COMMENT, WE CAN REACH OUT TO THE SCHOOL, SEE IF THEY HAVE ADDITIONAL EMAILS, AND THEN THE THINGS THAT WE HAVE PREVIOUSLY PUSHED OUT, WE CAN PUSH OUT AGAIN. I'LL TAKE A QUESTION FROM THE MICROPHONE.

HI, NICOLE KEEFE. I'VE BEEN A DAY SCHOOL TEACHER FOR 28 YEARS. I appreciate the pushing off the timeline till March, and I'm also appreciative to hear that you're having a committee look at the tax base or the rate between businesses and residents. But I'm curious, what's the timeline for that committee and why wouldn't you look at those pieces first before implementing health insurance changes to all the employees?

Sure. So the select board set the deadline for the tax working group to report back in August of 2026, so within the next month. So that will be coming. And we have to look at all of these things in tandem as they all layer in.

I just wanted to, again, it took me a little while to understand how the tax classification works. I just want to emphasize something that came up before. So we do have the ability once a year during the tax classification hearing to choose the allocation of burden between residents and commercial taxpayers, but that doesn't affect the total amount collected. The total amount collected that we can use, which is called the levy, That is basically capped at this 2.5%. So the only change we can make is who pays how much. So it would affect the residents and how much they pay in taxes or the businesses and how much they pay, but it wouldn't change the available funds. So just to make it clear, And we will look at this again. The reason that we decided to keep it the same between commercial and residential when we reviewed this in 2010 was because Westford is now about 90% residential, 10% commercial. So in order to make a $1 difference for residents, if we offset $1 for residents, that raises the commercial by 10. And so it has a huge effect on the commercial to make any real difference for the resident. And the other issue is we want to make sure we're competitive in attracting businesses. We want to make sure that when people are choosing where to locate, they don't see any disadvantage coming to Westford. At the time that we looked at it, other communities like us that had the same kind of office type commercial property footprint, had also had the same tax rate between residents. So those are the things that are at stake here. Please join in the tax classification committee that's doing the study now if you're interested in that. But just to make it clear, that's an allocation issue, not a total dollars raised issue.

Thank you, Tom, for breaking that down for us. Really helpful. I will also add to his comments, and I think Kristen did mention this, is that we do have a wonderful economic development committee in this community that works very, very hard to try to enhance Westford as a place that businesses want to do business in. And we have spent funds to hire consultants to work with that group over the last about 18 months at this point to see if we can continue to grow our commercial base because we know that is one way that we can try to offset the burden on our residents okay we have another question online

We do, and this is a long question followed by a comment. So I'm going to read the question, we'll answer it, and then I can respond with the remainder of the comment. I'm sorry if I missed introductions, but what is Mark Crisitelli's position in the town? He works or used to work in the insurance industry. I'm confused by his answer to the question about considering other providers than BCS in order to save money.

So Mark Christoseli works for HUB. The town of Westford has hired HUB to be our insurance broker.

And following up on that, now that that question was answered, even if it's only 15% of total cost, it still makes sense to me to consider the option of shopping around, especially since when we used to do this years ago, we did not have this problem of affording health insurance. Premiums have been increasing astronomically since we have been staying with BCBS. The market basket analysis shows the town who spends much less on health insurance than we do have other insurance companies. Please consider saving costs by shopping around rather than deferring costs onto employees. Thank you for your time and consideration. We have one further question from Sandy Collins. As you discussed today, the possibility of increasing deductibles. Excuse me. or premiums for higher users as an option. I'm very concerned that as retirees, they're no longer working. They will be adversely impacted at a time they may need insurance the most. Also, please, although the effort in obtaining data is appreciated and necessary, would you request a one- to two-page comparison of benefits and services, premium costs for individuals' families, and deductible impacts so rational decisions can be made?

Sandy, thank you for the question. As we've talked about already, it is not as easy as just bringing a one to two page analysis into play here. We just already highlighted the 28 page analysis that we have. And as we get deeper into the plan design changes, that makes it even more difficult. But we will do our very best to try to make it as readable and digestible for everyone as possible. So thank you for that feedback. We have a question at the mic.

Diane Wood, 122 Depot. I want to reinforce, and I'm sure everybody else does, the need for much greater communication, especially as it relates to the general community. I suspect 99% of the people in this room are either employees or retirees. I don't see representation from the community, or at least visibility or comments. So more communication. There should have been more visibility from the community, more people in this room who don't represent employees or retirees. And I think you need both sides because I would say most of the people don't understand all the details that are going on right now. So just reinforcing the stronger need. And I know there's just so much you can do. However, that's a segment of the community that really needs to better understand how this will impact them. And I don't think 99% of the people who are not employees understands that. Thanks.

Thank you so much, Diane. I HAD A CONVERSATION WITH THE SELECT BOARD A FEW WEEKS AGO THAT I THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO HAVE A LISTENING SESSION WITH THE EMPLOYEES AND THE RETIREES. SO THAT MEETING TODAY IS A TARGET MEETING FOR EMPLOYEES AND RETIREES. WE WILL DEFINITELY HAVE MORE MEETINGS AND OUTREACH TO THE RESIDENTS, BUT THIS MEETING TODAY, AFTER MY DISCUSSIONS WITH THE BOARD, WAS REALLY TARGETED TOWARDS RETIREES AND EMPLOYEES. SO JUST TO REITERATE THAT.

Diane, thank you very much for that question and the great answer, Kristen. And as we've heard many times, we are going to try to keep the communication avenue as open and people as engaged as possible. Another question at the mic.

Nina Mangan, retiree, Westford resident. Can you tell me the number of Market Basket communities that are participating in GIC?

Mark, could you tell us the number of Market Basket communities that are in the GIC? I believe it's nine.

Yeah, I was going to guess eight.

Out of? 20. 20. Okay. And I know that at the last meeting that I attended that you did say that you had talked with town. The reason I'm asking is because I've read a lot of the letters that I found really respectful and very informative. And I know that a couple of people that are very respected in town are. one being Patty Duby, her letter I found enlightening. And it says here, in my 25 years as a town of Westford employee and two years as a retiree, I have heard very few positive comments about GIC from her counterparts. And I think that's significant. She's well connected to other communities. And to hear that, I don't know why, well, I do know why you're looking into this, but it concerns me that you're, It appears to us that that's where you're leaning, and that might not be true. However, it concerns me that But that's something that we're really considering out of going online and hearing and seeing negative things. As I mentioned at the last meeting, it concerns me for people who use mental health that Westford is considering an insurance provider that is very limited in that way. It has pried itself over the years and worked hard. We have students. community members have children that we know is a problem in today's world yet they're going to be probably not going to get the access that they need i just feel like that's very disheartening to me if we went to gic i've also heard that it's very difficult to to backtrack and get out of GIC. And I'd like that to be seriously considered. I mean, every other insurance company that we've gone with, we always have the assurance that it's not going to be, it will be hard work for, you know, administrators to make that change. However, that change can be made. I get the feeling that that's going to be very hard, costly to the town. I'd feel better entering into GIC if I knew that that we can change our mind in a year after we've experienced for ourselves. And I don't believe that that's really the case.

I'm going to ask you to pause because you've brought up a lot of great questions and before we lose track of everything that you're saying, I want to take an opportunity to try to respond a little bit. I think part of the confusion between when you're talking about GIC and when we're talking about plan redesign changes and GIC benchmark look-alike plans, that doesn't necessarily mean that the Health Insurance Trust is going to move us to the GIC. They actually don't have the authority to do that. What we're talking about is one of the compensation practices that Westford has always followed, which is to try to provide compensation to our employees, which is at the midline of our benchmark communities, is something that we're trying to implement for health insurance as well, or look towards implementing. And what that benchmark is in many cases is a GIC plan. And so that's where that terminology comes from. Now having said that, The select board has the authority to dissolve the trust and move the town into the GIC. This board has not set any hard or fast timelines or plans to do that. I think there would need to be quite a bit more educational opportunities for both the town leadership and stakeholders, retirees and employees to get educated about what the GIC can offer. You brought up a question about mental health. The GIC does have plans that provide mental health coverage. So I think that one of the things that we could probably do to help just make people feel more informed is to provide an educational session so that if The select board decides in the near future or from now later in the future to move, people will feel a little bit better informed. As far as all we've heard is negative things about the GIC, I can tell you that I have not heard that. I have heard positive things about the GIC. I have heard from Westford employees and retirees that they fear that there's just always negative consequences. But our town manager did reach out to, I believe, five town managers for our market. EIGHT TOWN MANAGERS OF THE MARKET BASKET COMMUNITIES AND ASKED WHAT THEIR EXPERIENCE HAS BEEN ON THE GIC. THAT IS A PUBLIC DOCUMENT. I BELIEVE IT'S IN ONE OF THE HEALTH INSURANCE TRUST PACKETS. I THINK I SAW IT. OKAY. AND BY AND LARGE, THOSE TOWN MANAGERS SAID THAT IT WAS A GREAT MOVE FOR THEIR COMMUNITIES. But for what- Let me finish, yeah. And so obviously they may be speaking from a pure budget perspective, but some did offer feedback that the employees seemed generally well satisfied with it. So again, tonight we're really talking about what the health insurance trust is gonna be doing in terms of next steps. And the select board will be continuing to discuss GIC as a potential option, but what I see going forward as a first move if we continue to go down that path is to have an educational session where we bring in somebody from the GIC to a session like this where we can answer questions from retirees and employees.

So am I wrong in, if you're looking at GIC options, whatever that may be, I'm not well versed in this at all. Are you also looking at the same time of what Blue Cross Blue Shield, what we have today will be?

Yes, so when we talk about plan redesign changes and we talk about a 50% benchmark plan, that's taking the benchmark GIC plan and basically halving the deductibles, halving the co-pays. a full gic benchmark plan would be taking what the gic offers and you could see how much that costs to some of the because some of the towns on their comparison as you just heard basically are gic enrolled so you can do a rough comparison now you'll have to take into account how much the percent that the town pays versus the employees pay, right? So you're doing the right comparison. But that data will be analyzed by the Health Insurance Trust and discussed and debated. Public input will be very welcome during that process. And as you heard from Kristen, who is the chair of the Health Insurance Trust, that first step is gonna be taking place in the next week or so. There was one other question that you answered, which was why do people feel, why do communities feel like they can't get out of the GIC? Well, the GIC does mandate a three-year enrollment. You can't leave within three years. And generally speaking, what we have heard, the reason why many of these communities can't leave is because financially it's to their advantage not to. So please, if you have any other questions.

Yeah. So as a retiree, if I were to leave and go private, if I was unhappy with the decision that's made for the town and I go private because I'm Medicare age, can I come back at some point? Or am I then, like the dental, I can no longer come back to the town retiree?

I actually don't know that answer. So if you could send me an email or the TMAA email, we will get back to you.

I think that would be helpful because everything that people have said, this is going to be costly for those of us that are older and that are using our insurance that we've never used before. Paid all these years. Many of us, myself included, have been so fortunate not to be unhealthy and Now we're gonna have the deductibles. It's just very disheartening. The only other thing I wanted to say is another letter that was written. It said that this person's concerned that GIC is a short-term cost savings to help with the FY28 budget along with presumptions of saving in the future. Even Lockton has said repetitively that his estimate of cost savings may not occur and may not continue before decision to enter, you know, we need to consider this. And that again, unless we're having a significant savings, significant savings, I just am very disappointed that the town would consider doing this to its employees and to its retirees. And all these people who have worked 30 years of their life, maybe less, maybe more, they chose to serve the town. They chose to do this. They chose to work for lesser income than they could have. But they chose this because they were weighing out the benefits of retirement. And now that's being compromised. And I think that's... something that's very serious that you should consider.

Nita, thank you very much for your very well thought out questions. It really was helpful to have that. We have some more questions online, so Mike.

Anonymous attendee asks, I get the sense we are currently avoiding what the increases might be. Having my personal health insurance programs go up by 20% last year was a big shock. And as one gentleman pointed out, we use this insurance more now because we need it more now. It feels like we are being punished for doing so. Any chance that you can even offset the cost to everyone instead of just slapping it onto the retirees?

So as I said in my presentation, we have not made any suggested changes. We are reviewing what it may mean to make changes to active employees and what it may mean to make changes to retirees. Once we have that data, we will present that out. But we do not have that information at this point in time.

And another question from Jesse Beyer. I think it would be good to understand how much savings there is for the town if any switch is made. I'd hate to make a change that, say, passes $500,000 of cost to employees and only saves the town $150,000 or something like that. I feel this is a key question needing to be answered yet.

Jesse, again, thank you for the question, and spot on. I mean, certainly we are going to do that analysis in the months to come, so appreciate it. Any other questions, Mike?

Okay.

Any other questions from members of the audience? Yes, please come on down to the mic. Thank you. It's just so that folks can hear online.

I think it's just a clarification question.

I know, Kristen, when you did your presentation on the very – it seems like on the overview or the very first slide, there was mention that – it just seems like there's confusion with a statement maybe that says that we weren't going to the GIC, but now we're talking about the GIC. So some of us are a little confused.

So one of the first slides outlined what the health insurance trust voted on on July 1st. And one of those votes, and Sean can speak more directly as he also voted on the trust, was that the town would not pursue going to the GIC for July 1st of 2027. Now we know we have some more time to make POTENTIAL CHANGES WITH A POTENTIAL MARCH 1ST ADJUSTMENT. HOWEVER, I'LL LET THE SELECT BOARD SPEAK TO IF THEY FEEL THAT THE GIC IS OR IS NOT ON THE TABLE. I DON'T HAVE THAT INFORMATION.

Thank you for that question. As I mentioned previously, the Select Board, I think, would feel prudent to provide more opportunity for education on the GIC. That's something that we have not had an opportunity to do. I feel strongly that the more that we can educate people about different topics, the better the resulting conversation will be. I do think that the right move is to at least have a conversation, have that educational opportunity provided and then we'll have conversations like we're having tonight to answer any additional questions and go from there.

Yes, please.

Hi, Elizabeth. There are a couple of points I'd like to just offer up as you find them useful. GIC does make a lot of information publicly available. It's a program that Almost 500,000 people use in the state, some as the subscribers, some as families. As Chris said, it's very important to us that we structure information so it feels interactive and guided and comprehensible. But I mentioned that if you are so inclined, there is information out there that is easy to find. So if you were to search on Facebook, FY27 and GIC plan, you'd come up with a colorful, I think it's about a dozen pages. And it might do a few things that have come up in some of the letters I've read. And I think of them as letters. The emails you've sent us are really letters. They're personal. They're compelling. We are reading them. And as I've read them, I've... WANTED TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO THREAD THIS NEEDLE OF JUST MAKING SURE THAT SOME OF THE FACTS ARE OUT THERE, BECAUSE WITH SOME FACTS, SOME OF IT IS A LITTLE LESS DAUNTING. AND SO, YOU KNOW, CHRIS MENTIONED ONE OF THEM, THAT THE MEDICAL PLANS THAT THE GIC OFFERS ARE MEDICAL PLANS. THEY AREN'T KIND OF PLANS. THEY'RE PLANS. And you can read them. They have mental health, substance abuse, addictive behaviors. That's an example of one of the things that was in some of these letters that was questioned. And you could see it if you wanted to. Please know I'm not... asking you to do it. I'm just trying to remove some of the sense that I think I hear, which is that you feel blowing in the wind. So if you want to come out of the wind, if you want to read it, it's there. You could see that some of the copays are really low. You can see that some of the caps are potentially good for you. As I mentioned, some of these letters were very detailed in how much people pay out right now in insurance. And although it is not true for everybody, there are scenarios where there are aspects of choice that might be beneficial. And I'm not advocating for the GIC, but I do really feel that there's a lot of understandable fears that are driving views on it and we're just trying to get to what's real about it and in many conversations about difficult choices it's helpful to know what that outer bumper is and that's the outer bumper and so adding shape to that is part of just getting aware of where the bumpers are and also it is so important that we're part of this MIDDLE COMMUNICATION. BUT IT IS UNCOMFORTABLE. I MEAN, THERE'S SO MANY THINGS WHERE WE DON'T KNOW ALL THE ANSWERS. IT IS PART OF BEING excuse me, in the journey along the way while possibilities are being considered when there's a reverse. We thought something was going down one path and tried to share that and we had to reverse and we learned more and now we're going forward again. So I'm gonna wrap this all up to say I really appreciate all your letters. I'm glad they're part of the public record. They are important. If you are so inclined, I just want you to know there is some information there, but we're very committed to also packaging more in a very structured way as we learn it. Very glad you're on the journey with us. Wish it weren't bumpy. It is. We're acknowledging it. We're here together on that. Thank you for sharing the input we've asked for, and I believe the conversations are... are in a robust way today, but going to continue.

All right. Thank you, Elizabeth. That was a really great way to put all of this into a different context and understanding. So I appreciate your comments. We have some gentlemen at the mic. So go ahead, sir.

My question would be is with the plan design changes that are proposed, has there been any analysis that's done? If we make this more attractive and attract more users, what would our savings be at that point, even if it raises by 5% to 10%?

THANK YOU, CAPTAIN HOLMES. THAT IS CERTAINLY ONE OF THE THINGS THAT THE HEALTH INSURANCE TRUST IS REVIEWING IS IF WE DO MAKE PLAN DESIGN CHANGES, WOULD THAT INCREASE THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE ON THE PLAN? WHAT WOULD WE ANTICIPATE? AND WHAT WOULD THAT ANTICIPATE RELATED TO ADDITIONAL COSTS THAT WE WOULD SEE? SO THAT IS PART OF THE ANALYSIS THAT WE ARE LOOKING AT WITH HUB.

OKAY, THANK YOU.

OKAY, YOU'RE NEXT.

Tim Hall, North Street. Question is, if you guys are considering, I know you're not considering the GIC this time around, but for FY28, if you are considering the GIC, would you at least try to maybe offer a little bit more of the percentage picked up? Like, say, a town like Lexington, where they're on the GIC, they pick up 80%. we only pick up 65. And we're going to lose things like mental health coverage and other things. It would be nice to get something out of it anyway.

Again, thank you for your comments. Just to be clear, GIC does provide mental health coverage, so we just want to make sure everybody is aware of that because that keeps coming up. But It's I think a little too early in the journey to give you a hard and fast yes on that because we would first need to have that educational step, get us a little bit more informed about the GIC and what it might look like for Westford. We do have some analysis done by Lockton that shows but the amount of proposed savings if we were to go to GIC as well as a breakdown of how that savings might change if we had additional enrollment. But one of the things that has not been discussed at this point is potentially changing the contribution from the community to the employees on that. So I think that's something in the future that we could definitely analyze as we get further along that path. If we decide to go that way. We may not. We may decide that we have the educational session and say this is not right for Westford. But I do see that that's an option that I would not say is off the table. I just can't give you a firm answer on it at this point.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Hi, Phyllis Snyder, retiree. I just have a question. Did you interview other insurance companies or just GIC? Or did you mention, like Tufts or something else? Did you look at them also?

So I think in terms of the market, and Mark can speak to this if I misstep, Mark Christoseli, over the course of the past few years, the town of Westford's Health Insurance Trust has talked to the GIC, which offers a multitude of plans through a multitude of providers. We have talked to the Massachusetts Interlocal Insurance Association, MIAA, about their plan offerings. And we talk with Hub about their offerings as well. So we continue to have these discussions every single year. Because years ago we did have Tufts.

And we had, I forget the other one.

There was Fallon as well.

And the third one. There was another one too.

Maybe Harvard Pilgrim. I'm not sure.

I thought there was another one.

GIC has a number of plans. I don't have the copy in front of me, but there's a number of options to choose from based upon active and retiree, based upon the region that you're in and all of those items, but I don't want to get into that this evening.

All right, we have a question at the mic.

Hi, I'm Jody Ross, 34 Lawson Road. So I'm privileged to be the PEC rep for the retirees. And thank you, Kristen, for just appointing me to the IAC for retirees. What I hear from the retirees is they're afraid of having to change doctors or change facilities or drug benefits. And that's what I hear from most of them. And I think the unknown is what's really creating a lot of angst. The GIC, none of us really know whether we would have to change doctors, not if they're in Florida, New Hampshire, whatever. That would be really important to understand that. Somebody asked, I think it was Nina, about survey. My recollection didn't look, but remember from a meeting, I believe it was 73% of our employees said that they liked their health insurance plan. And I believe it was 55% said they would pay more to keep it. I may have those numbers wrong, but the retirees were not surveyed. So all I would say is, Somebody asked, I think Diane, about Westford residents. Would it be okay if I asked how many people in the room are Westford residents? Would that be okay?

Sure, I'm happy to ask on your behalf. Okay. Just curious, you don't have to answer this question, but if you're a Westford resident, please raise your hand. Great, thank you.

SO THE REASON WHY I ASK THAT IS BECAUSE WHEN I WAS THE TOWN MANAGER, WE HAD ABOUT 350 TOWN EMPLOYEES WHO WERE RESIDENTS. AND I KNOW I ALWAYS TRIED TO HIRE RESIDENTS WHEN I COULD, BUT YOU KNOW, WE ARE RESIDENTS. WE WERE HIT BY PAY AS YOU THROW. SOME OF US ARE ON FIXED INCOMES, MOST OF US. SO I JUST THINK WE'VE GOT TO REALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT WE'RE DOING TO, I'M ADVOCATING FOR RETIREES, BUT We really have to pay attention and give them more time than you make a decision one week and we hear a week and then we're into it. We need more time to be able to find out how this will impact us. So thank you very much.

Great. Jody, thank you very much for the questions. And we do hope that with the new timeline that we are discussing here this evening that we'll provide that opportunity to make sure that everybody has the chance to ask questions and get answers as we work through the public process that we have to follow in order to make a plan design change. So please try and stay engaged on that. Do we have a question? One more question? Okay.

We have one more from Sandy Collins. You answered this before. I'll give you a chance to do it once more. Can you assure us that if a plan change is made that retirees who live out of state will still have full coverage? It's already difficult to get a new provider.

I'm assuming it depends on what the change is, right? So if the health insurance trust decides to make plan design changes and they stay with Blue Cross Blue Shield, I don't expect you to lose your coverage. So am I correct with that, health insurance trust people? Correct. Thank you. Any other questions? Question at the mic.

No, I have some comments.

Okay.

I'm going to repeat some things.

But Ellen, I have to say, your comments sometimes come across as questions, just so you know. Okay.

Well, maybe I can mix them up and they can be enthusiastic exclamations.

I just want to make sure that we get you the answers you want. So if it is a question, just frame it as a question. We'll be happy to try and answer it.

I actually want to revisit some of the data, some information that I sent to the select board, and also some things that I saw in both the Lockton and the Hub report. So... Now I'm going to say this as a 54-year town employee. So I am so proud, obviously I'm still working here, to be an employee of Westford. And I've been in many a leadership group where every single department head in the room said the reason they were working for Westford was because of public service. It's a wonderful, wonderful work ethic that we have in this town. I'm always proud to say, no, our tax rate is lower. Go on the website and look. And I love to tease people and tell them that we figure out the employee leave accrual to the one ten thousandth every week. Heaven forbid we should spend one ten thousandth of a penny that is not due one of our workers. When I read the reports that we saw from my reading, the only health insurance that was actually solvent was Westford's Health Insurance Trust. Not the GIC, not the other three that were listed. We had the only one that was not in deficit. When I look at the GIC and how it's subsidized by Commonwealth taxpayers, it's not sustainable. We assume the liability of every member of every community that's in the GIC. We have to we have to join it before we know the rate and we can't negotiate the rate that we're going to pay. When I look at how hard over five decades Westford has worked and I went through gas shortages in the mid 70s, the awful early 90s, we never made funds in the roaring 80s because of the limits that we had for where we could invest town funds and that was because that was prudent and and that was legal. We went through the awful 90s, 2004, 2008, we've had so many setbacks and I can't even believe after so hard, all the hard work we've done to keep Westford at a AAA bond rating and a fiscally managed community that we would consider the GIC.

Do we have another question online?

To anyone wondering if their doctors are covered by GIC plans, GIC has a provider search, healthnewengland.org slash GIC provider search. You can look it up on GIC's website.

Great. Gentleman at the mic.

I just have a question for Mark from Hub. What does the health insurance trust look like it's going to do year over year for the next three years?

So Mark, let me take that first and then if I need to interact or you need to interject. So the health insurance trust looks at the rates every year. Health insurance across the board in every municipality or any private sector in the U.S. really is going up year over year. So we are tasked with ensuring that our trust has enough funds to make sure that we can afford our health insurance. But we generally don't don't look three to five years out because the trends are changing so quickly and the medical is changing so quickly. Mark, I don't know if you have anything else you wanted to add to that.

Yeah, no, Chris, I think that's well said, and that's why we have to meet with the trust very regularly. So we meet many times during the year to review the financials, review claim trends, specifically what's going on with Westford, but also what's going on in the overall health care economy. And we take all that data just to help us forecast in advance. The best I could do as far as forecasting the next three years would be, honestly, just looking at general trend. But your group is, although it's a large organization, it's more of a roller coaster as far as peaks and valleys of where the health care costs go. And a lot can change. now over the next three years. So as Chris mentioned, the Health Plan Trust has been very healthy, and as the previous questioner had mentioned as well. And again, the trustees are very well educated, and they do their best to keep their finger on the pulse of what's going on in the health care industry in their own plan to help make sure they don't ever run the debt.

So there's no dollar amount looking forward?

No, we definitely factor in health insurance expenses in our five-year projection that we do, and Dan O'Donnell can speak to that a little bit, but there's no specific number that we can give you.

Okay, thank you.

Great, thank you for the question. How are we looking online for questions? Are we clear there, or we have one in the way? Okay.

We have a comment. This is only one of the GIC providers, the same gentleman who posted the prior link. One of the GIC providers, and that is based solely in Western Mass. That is not accurate. The GIC actually has several providers, and individuals should go to www.mass.gov forward slash GIC.

Thank you. And that's, again, what my colleague Elizabeth was mentioning in terms of a great resource if you do want to learn a little bit more about the GIC. A lot of good information there. Is that another one or are we clear? All right. Any other questions from members of the audience? Yes. You have your hand raised. Can you come down? Yep. Great. Thank you.

What happens to the people that live out of state?

I'M SORRY, JUST FOR THE REPEAT AND CLOSER TO THE MICROPHONE.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE PEOPLE THAT LIVE OUT OF STATE WITH GIC?

SO AS ELIZABETH STATED, THERE'S MANY DIFFERENT OPTIONS ON THE GIC WEBSITE. THERE'S MORE NARROW NETWORKS FOR PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN MASSACHUSETTS. THERE'S WIDER NETWORKS FOR PEOPLE WHO LIVE OUT OF STATE. THE COSTS DO CHANGE BASED UPON WHICH PLAN YOU CHOOSE AND WHICH NETWORK YOU'RE IN.

DOES WESTVITZ STILL COVER US?

Would Westford still cover you if we went to the GIC? Yes, there would be an employee contribution and an employer contribution. Yes.

Once again, refer to Elizabeth's comment. When you go and look at the FY27 plan offerings on Mass.gov for GIC, it will give you a PDF that shows how the GIC plans are made available to where you live in the state of Massachusetts, outside of the state of Massachusetts, and when you're within the state of Massachusetts, it even breaks it down by county. And then it will show you which of the different insurers are available to you depending on where you live. So that information's there if you are so interested in looking into it. Any other questions at this point from members of the audience? Are we online? Clear online? Okay. Do we have any closing remarks from members of the select board before I ask for a motion to adjourn?

Yeah.

So it's come up a couple times about the tax working group. And I am the select board member who is a part of that group. So it is up to me to really know some of these dates. So I just wanted to let you know that our report's going to come out in September. That's the due date there. And also that if you're looking for the most recent time that analysis was done, 2018. So I'm just trying to, again, IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR MORE INFORMATION, JUST TO LAND WITH SOME MORE SPECIFICS OF YOUR PERSONAL QUESTIONS, THOSE ARE TWO THINGS I'LL POINT YOU TO. LOOK FOR THE WORKING GROUP I'M A PART OF TO REPORT OUT IN SEPTEMBER. AND IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE OF WHAT TOM WAS EXPLAINING FROM PAST FINDINGS, YOU'RE GOING TO GET DATA FROM 2018.

Okay, thank you, Elizabeth. Okay, before I close out, I just want to, again, talk about communication. So we have the ability to subscribe to alerts on our website. So you can subscribe to when a board or committee like the Health Insurance Trust is posting their meetings. That's one way of staying involved. We will do our best to engage retirees as well. Our HR director does have email addresses that she can send information to. If you are aware of a colleague or a fellow retiree that is not being made aware of what's going on, please let us know. I think the best PLACE WHERE THAT WOULD BE THE TOWN MANAGER'S OFFICE. YOU CAN GET THEM VIA PHONE OR IF THEY HAVE THE EMAIL ADDRESS. WE ALSO ARE TRYING TO REALLY PUSH OUR SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS. SO, OF COURSE, WE POST ON OUR TOWN WEBSITE. WE HAVE NEWS ALERTS JUST IN GENERAL THAT GO OUT THROUGH THE TOWN'S NEWS website, but we also have a Facebook page. We have a newly spun up Instagram. We are on X. So there's numerous ways that you guys can receive the information in a more passive sense rather than trying to search it out. We will push stuff out to you. So I encourage everybody to try to make use of those communication channels and please let your fellow, you know, retirees and employees know about those options because the more we can inform everybody about these discussions the better off we all will be and I really truly believe that so we welcome the feedback again you can email the town manager's office or any of the select board we really appreciate the time that folks took to send out the emails that they did over the last week or so. I did get one email that said something along the lines, I hope that AI isn't reading these. Rest assured that we are reading them and we truly appreciate your thoughts and questions. It really makes for a much richer discussion. I do think out of some of those questions, we have put together a frequently asked questions document that is available at the Health Insurance Trust website. Is that where it is? And the select board packet for this. So that is also something that we will continue to probably develop as this conversation moves forward. Okay, one last call out for questions. Nothing online. Mark from Hub, thank you very much for joining us this evening. Appreciate your feedback. Is there any questions or last words from the town manager?

I just really appreciate everybody's time today and the emails and comments. Once again, it is likely that the Health Insurance Trust is going to meet next Thursday afternoon. So if you are interested, please mark that on your calendar now as just a placeholder. And again, feel free to email TMAA at westfordma.gov. That reaches the town manager's office. Or select board at westfordma.gov. That reaches the select board as well as the town manager's office.

Okay, thank you very much, Kristen. And Mike just pointed out to me, Some of people have done a really nice job of framing the concerns that they have with this topic, and that in some cases included putting forth some financial and medical information in the emails. Those can be considered public documents, so I just want to caution folks that if you are going to share information, just keep that in mind. With that said, I'm going to look for a motion to adjourn this meeting. Do I have a second? Okay. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All right. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you very much for your time this evening. And for everybody who attended online, we really appreciate you taking the time. Thank you.