09 - Increase in City's monthyly health insurance contribution

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would be to adjust the City's contribution up enough to once again cover Plan C's Employee -Only option. While this will not cover the entire increase seen in rates, it will help and set us up better for further adjustments during the FY23/24 budget process next summer when we have more room to maneuver. It has been my long term plan over the past two years to first adjust pay and retirement, and then focus on other benefits. Therefore, it was indeed my plan to turn more attention towards our benefit program going in to the FY23/24 budget process, however, I did not foresee a 16% rate increase going in to the FY22/23 budget process. With that, we are indeed requesting an adjustment to the city's contribution to help alleviate some of this increase for employees. While I would like to do more, I must also make sure my recommendation is doable under our balanced budget we just recently approved. Please see the Budget section below for more information. BUDGET: TML Health has informed us that they will be applying a 16% rate increase to the City's Health Insurance plan options. A breakdown of the Current Monthly Rate and New Monthly Rate is provided on Exhibit B. In addition, we have shown on the far right column the amount above and beyond the City's $565/month contribution for Employee -Only plans. For example, under Plan C, the new rate is $25.56 more than the City's $565/month contribution. We did not show the amount above Employee -Child, Employee -Spouse, and Employee -Family for brevity purposes. Historically, the City has attempted to provide a monthly contribution to all employees under any plan that equates to an amount greater than both Plan C and D's Employee -Only Contribution. While Plan D's Employee -Only contribution is still fully covered, Plan C's has now increased beyond our current $565/month amount. These rates take effect January 1, 2023. In order to bring Plan C's Employee -Only option back to fully covered by the City's contribution, we would need to increase our monthly contribution from $565/month to at least $595/month, a $30/month/employee increase. Having just approved a balanced budget in FY22/23, we set out to determine if there is any opportunity of funds being available within what was approved. We currently have 285 full time employees (not all are on the City's health insurance, some have military coverage). The new rates do not go up until January 1, 2023, thus impacting 3/ of the fiscal year. We have budgeted (across the board) for 34 currently vacant positions to be filled (Public Works, Police, Utilities, EMS, etc.). For budgeting purposes, we do have each of these budgeted starting October 1, 2022, however reality dictates that not all of these will be filled by October 1St and not all by January 1 St. We still budget for them because you never know what may happen and the budgeted amount helps cover unexpected OT that other employees have to work in order to cover for the vacant position. With all of this, I have gone through the listed vacant positions and performed a very conservative calculation of reasonably how many employees will we hire by January 1, 2023. My figures assumed we will not lose any of the existing 285