Change in insurance to save Struthers $147,000

By Jeanne Starmack

STRUTHERS — A change in the city’s health-care insurance structure will reap an estimated savings of at least $147,000, the city auditor said.

The mayor says that savings will help him present a balanced budget to the city council and will minimize the need for layoffs in the city’s work force.

The city’s cost-containment committee approved a change from a two-tier, or single and family plans, to a four-tier system in January, said auditor Tina Morell. Under the four-tier system, plans will include single, employee/children, employee/spouse and family.

Morell said that instead of the city’s paying $1,276 a month for family coverage for everyone, the breakouts will save money. The employee/children plan will cost $698 a month, and the employee/spouse plan will cost $909. The single plan will cost $413.

The change also includes a spousal rule, meaning that spouses will have to leave the city’s plan if they are offered coverage where they work and would pay less than 35 percent of what the city pays for their coverage.

The spousal rule means some employees will pay more for health care. Under the four-tier system, the employee/spouse plan will cost an employee $54 a month. Spouses might have to pay more than that for health-care coverage at their own workplace.

“But our responsibility is to our taxpayers,” Morell said. She said she doesn’t know yet how many of the 64 employees eligible for benefits will end up paying more if their spouses have to leave the city’s plan. Letters will be sent to spouses’ workplaces asking for information to determine if they’re eligible to stay on it.

The cost-containment committee voted 6-3 for the change, and it will start in March. No vote by the city council is needed.

Morell said she’s sought the change for the last three years. She said the city paid approximately $847,000 for health-care coverage last year. This year’s cost, she estimates, will be “$700,000 or less.”

“It’s a considerable savings to the city,” she said.

“I’m going to present a balanced budget [at a finance-committee meeting] Wednesday,” said Mayor Terry Stocker.

“If it hadn’t been for the cooperation of employees on the health-care cost-containment committee, we’d have had a much more difficult time balancing the budget,” he said.

The committee includes city administrators and representatives from unions and other work groups in the city.