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Regular Meeting City Council <br />June 14, 2004 <br />Page 28 <br />Mayor Fendley stated there were currently twenty-nine (29) retirees. <br />Councilman Wilson asked how much their insurance was costing. Councilman <br />Guest said around $132,000.00 for about 6% of the total insurance premium. <br />Mayor Fendley said he didn't object to retirees being on the plan if they paid. <br />Councilman Bell said that was just COBRA, which is only good for eighteen <br />(18) months. Mr. Anderson said that most of the cities that he surveyed allowed <br />the retirees to stay on the insurance plan with varying amounts of support, <br />anywhere from partial to full cost. Councilman Bell said a very small <br />percentage of those people surveyed in the nation pay for the retirees insurance <br />fully, like the City is doing. <br />Councilman Guest reminded the Council that some people have already made <br />their decisions to retire on the assumption of the continuation of this plan and <br />that this is one of the benefits they get for working at the City of Paris, and <br />others have made their decisions and already retired based on this. He felt they <br />needed to ask what is a fair treatment for those employees. He said there were <br />options: to continue like they are doing and put a policy in place to prohibit it <br />from happening in the future, scaling it back or just do nothing. Councilman <br />Wilson said there were a whole lot of options and felt like it would take a whole <br />lot of discussion. He felt like there should be a grandfather clause that gave <br />people very near retiring a small period of time to make their decision before <br />the change is made. <br />Councilman Guest reminded them that not only did they have the current <br />retirees to consider, but there were potentially 25 to 29 more eligible for <br />retirement now, which would bring the City's liability to over $300,000.00. <br />Mayor Fendley suggested weaning people off the plan, say they pay 20% this <br />year, 30% on, but he felt they shouldn't continuing the plan for anyone who is <br />not already on the plan. Councilwoman Wilkerson suggested to be fair, if there <br />are employees who are going to retire by the end of the year, they would get to <br />