Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

City health insurance to increase

The City of Gurdon will cut back from paying 50 percent of the cost of family insurance for volunteer firemen to 40 percent in the 2005 "because of substantial increases in the cost of family insurance for city employees."

Tambra Childres, city recorder and treasurer, said Tuesday, "The Arkansas Municipal League has increased our employee insurance on individuals from $405 a month to $445 a month, and on family plans from $900 a month to $990 a month.

"We will attempt this formula of cutbacks to try and make it work financially for the employees. The big thing is we want to continue to offer the benefits in a way people can afford it, and the city must be able to afford their part."

Childres said the money breakdown means that individual health insurance for just employees, full-time for the city or volunteer fireman, will be the same percentages as before: the employee will pay $89.10 a month and Gurdon will pay $356.40 a month.

The change is in the family plan coverage percentages. On the full-time city employee with family coverage side, the employee will pay $361.35 a month and the City of Gurdon, $628.65 a month. This represents the same percentages as last year.

The cut comes with volunteer firemen on the family plan. Their part of the monthly family plan will be $415.84 a month, with the city to pay $574.16 a month.

Childres said last year the city was able to pay 80 percent of health insurance costs for individual employees and 50 percent for dependent coverage. This was true of full-time employees or volunteer firemen.

In the upcoming year, the city will continue to pay 80 percent of the health insurance costs for individual volunteer firemen, but will drop the amount paid for volunteer firemen dependent family coverage from 50 percent to 40 percent.

"The Arkansas Municipal League will meet in the summer and review insurance matters," Childres said. "It could go down, if everybody stays healthy between now and then. But we were previously at a 300 percent loss ratio. To have hope of our insurance costs decreasing, we would have to be claim free for the first six months of this year."