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A rl UINNI the Planning and Zoning Meeting scheduled for February 2nd and back before the City Council at the meeting scheduled February 5th Mayor Fendley called for a report by the City Council Benefits Subcommittee. Councilman Guest stated the handout is a summary of the Employee Benefits Committee findings. Councilman Guest stated that the first item was Health and Life Benefits. He said that one of the attachments, Exhibit I, showed the current and proposed. benefits. Gene Anderson explained that in network, there is no out of pocket limit as opposed to out -of- network, where there is a limit. He said this would give employees an incentive to stay in network. Mr. Anderson said the City is currently contributing $450 per employee to the plan. Councilman Guest said this was about a $2 million expenditure for the city. Councilman Guest said the Committee proposed to add sister -in -law, brother -in- law, grandparent and guardian to the definition of immediate family under leaves of absence for funerals. He stated the employees could currently accumulate 135 days of sick leave before having to. go on COBRA and civil employees have no limit. Councilman Plata asked what happened to sick leave over the 135 day limit. Mr. Anderson said there was a sell back option that the employees could participate in every year for excess sick leave. Mr. Anderson stated that he looked back over the past five years at the sell back, which also includes some vacation days. He stated last year's figure was $98,725.00 and the year before was . $113,000.00. This year's figure was $188,000.00, Mr. Anderson said, which he felt like was because of all the talk of cutting employee benefits. He predicted next year's figure wouldn't be near that much. On a question from Councilman Plata about abuse of sick leave, Mr. Anderson said there was probably some abuse, but he felt the employees generally did not abuse it. He felt like one of the deterrents to abuse was the policy of requiring a doctor's