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HomeMy WebLinkAbout07-23-25 MinutesTranscript July 23, 2025, 5:03PM Bill Nary started transcription Bill Nary 0:03 I'm gonna go ahead and call this meeting to order. This is the continued meeting of the Board of trustees for the Meridian Employee Benefits Trust. It is Wednesday, July 23rd at 11:00 AM. It's just a couple minutes after and I'll make note for the record. So Bill nary trustee President Alex Freitag. Here, Christina, Barney. Christena Barney 0:30 Present. Bill Nary 0:31 And Eli, Daniel. Eli Daniel 0:34 Present. Bill Nary 0:35 And then we also have Tasha Norman here from Gallagher, Dan Moy, here from Blue Cross and River White here from HR. So our intent of the meeting today predominantly is. Our renewals discussion and that's we discussed a little bit of medical the last time we talked about dental and vision. So I will let Tasha take it away. Tasha Norman 0:59 Perfect. So where are we? Kind of kicked off or ended last meeting, was looking at maybe plan design options as well as contribution options to get us down to that flat 17% increase instead of the 17.7% increase in funding. And I did just a little bit of clarification here that. Bill Nary 1:18 Mm-hmm. Tasha Norman 1:24 So that 17% that is for the entire trust funding that's for medical, dental. And vision, correct? Bill Nary 1:31 Yes. Tasha Norman 1:32 OK, perfect. Reba White 1:33 Hello. Tasha Norman 1:34 So. Reba White 1:35 I. I thought medical was just the 17. Eli Daniel 1:38 That's what I was trying to impression of. Tasha Norman 1:40 So, OK, so the medical increase was the 17.7%, but I guess my question was if we're going to increase trust funding, what if we're approved to increase by 17%? Is that for all lines of coverage? Bill Nary 1:57 The the 17% I mean that's the number, so. Here's the here's the here's the question, I guess, for the trustees. I went to talk to Todd, our CFO last week after the meeting. And I told him. We, you know, ended up slightly over 17% of an increase and we didn't talk about the specifics of medical and that's my fault. But that verse medical versus the whole line of of coverage. His answer to me was whatever it is, you're good. It's fine. It doesn't matter. And I said, but it matters to us. We want to make sure we are being responsible. What? What is the actual funding? And he said the way this is set up, the funding is whatever you need, it is we have the funds to pay it. So in his view, I, he said. I don't care. I don't care what the number is and I said, well, we care what the number is. So we're trying to be responsible. Get it within a target and the target, we were told, was 17%. And so, you know, previous month when we had discussed this as a trust, it was slightly under 17% and we said that's fine, let's just leave it at 17 and then the last the. Last week we went OK. It's slightly over 17. Let's try to get it at that 17, but technically I think it is. That's how much the trust. Is funded, is a 17% increase. To the entire line. So that's all of it now. Tasha Norman 3:31 OK. Bill Nary 3:33 I don't know if if if I had to parse that out from a accounting standpoint. Is that I would take that as 17 medical 17 for all of it. Not not. Take, don't take the whole number as one number, it adds 17%. I'd say take 17% for each line to make sure that there's adequate amount for each one. I know that puts us way over what's needed for. Dental or vision. But that to me is still covered under that. Tasha Norman 4:01 Mm-hmm. Bill Nary 4:05 But that 17 was the target we were looking at and predominantly towards the medical piece, so. Reba White 4:12 Right. And I'm what my clarification is, is that 17% was just for medical because dental and vision have rate guarantees and they were not. Bill Nary 4:22 No. Reba White 4:23 And so we have rate guarantees on this side where she's not having an increase, but our claims are still impacted on dental and vision. Bill Nary 4:31 Correct. Reba White 4:31 So there was a recommendation that we could keep those at 0, but if we wanted. To look at our claims for dental and vision as well, that would be in enhancement of the 17. So 17 is only dealing with getting us to being equal to our medical claims and the increase in admin fee and whatever cases that we're doing for programs. But dental and vision we have other. I mean, we are hitting 100% over on vision currently. Bill Nary 5:10 Right. Reba White 5:10 I think we're right below that in dental. And so if if it was up to us, we would say. Those are zero and medical 17. And so the total 17 or do we want to look at dental and vision claims to do 17 for medical and two for dental and one for vision that is up to us. But seventeen was specifically talking about just medical for claims and admin. Bill Nary 5:32 Yes. Tasha Norman 5:40 OK, perfect. Bill Nary 5:41 And I woke up for the record, Scott Storring just as well, so. Tasha Norman 5:44 He's got. Scott Howell 5:45 Hey, guys. Tasha Norman 5:46 OK. So I did. We're definitely prepared to talk about the medical plan, design changes as well as contribution options. I also put the delta Dental claims projections in here as well. Bill Nary 5:54 Yes. OK. Tasha Norman 6:00 And the delta dental funding increase that's. Reba White 6:05 You want to open that Tasha, since not everybody was on your e-mail, that is on our committee or trustee. Yeah. Thank you. Tasha Norman 6:08 Oh. Let me show this here, OK, so. I guess let's just start with. Let's just focus on medical here, OK? So these are the plan design options. That we can look into making to save a little bit of money on our medical increase. So if we are current here in this renewal column here, we're projecting. $9.1 million in medical claims. So if and that's coming in at that 17.7%. So if we want to get that down to 17% flat, we need to save about $56,000 in claims or yeah and we can do that, I guess we just need to save 50. $6000 and we can do that through plan design changes and contributions. So this option one here is just moving our $750 deductible to an $800 deductible and everything else would remain the same. That would save us about $16,000 annually. Bill Nary 7:26 That. Tasha Norman 7:27 This option 2 here is moving our deductible or our maximum out of pocket up by $250, leaving our deductible the same and that expected annual. More claims savings is $90,000. Eli Daniel 7:43 OK. Bill Nary 7:44 Wow. Tasha Norman 7:45 And as we, I mean as you kind of look over, I I feel like these are probably a little more extreme and maybe not something the trustees would be interested in doing, but I had the numbers. So I went ahead and threw them on there. Interested in hearing thoughts on the plan design options. Bill Nary 8:12 So what's everybody think? Eli Daniel 8:15 Looks good. I mean option two obviously hits the hits nail on the head to cover the. The .7 for us, plus a little bit extra. Bill Nary 8:26 Plus, yeah, I guess it's certainly a little tiny cushion. Reba White 8:29 And something to note. Scott Howell 8:29 One thing that came up in the last meeting was. Bill Nary 8:29 And list impact. Scott Howell 8:34 Kind of a question about how many people are hitting the deductible in the out of pocket and Tasha was able to get some reporting from Dan around that, if that's. Reba White 8:44 Yeah, I can. Scott Howell 8:45 If that's helpful to see. Eli Daniel 8:46 Absolutely. Reba White 8:46 I can share that Tasha or not share it, but like I have the e-mail up if you need it. Tasha Norman 8:52 Yeah. And Dan was able to get this over to us and kind of provide some insight on it. And Ray, would you want me to just review it or do you want to speak to it? I'm happy to. Reba White 9:04 Yeah, it was. I mean, I didn't open the Excel spreadsheet at all 'cause you synopsis it really well, but out of we have 1387 members. So that's employees, spouses, dependents, 316 of them hits the $750 single deductible and then. 424 and 25, and then for the. Family. Tab it's showing the 482 enrollees, so number of employees on the plan, it says that 112 members with family coverage met the family deductible of the 2250. So out of yeah. Eli Daniel 9:48 About 1/4. Reba White 9:52 So you like I said, you even and I'll I can put it in the chat if you guys are visual so that I can. You guys can keep looking at it, but. It is. I mean it is a smaller number affected with the family, the family deductible or the. Yeah. So if we were raising the Max out of pocket on option 2 for the 2500, obviously that's the individual Max out of pocket. So then we would also discuss raising the family as well, correct? Eli Daniel 10:30 Mac with Double S, right? Reba White 10:31 Yeah. Tasha Norman 10:32 That's correct. Eli Daniel 10:36 So 1/4 of our Members would be potentially paying an extra $500 a year. Assuming that we hit the same numbers as we have. Bill Nary 10:53 Again, it's a good. I mean obviously on one side of the argument is that's a good reason to again push the alternative options that people have and maybe they can, you know, again save themselves some money at the front end sooner than later. That's one way to look at it. So go ahead, Eli. Eli Daniel 11:10 I did some. Bill Nary 11:11 I'm sorry to cut you off. Eli Daniel 11:11 Oh, no, you're good. I was. I was gonna say I did some chatting around with a couple folks in our department and got a little bit of a general consensus that they'd they'd like to see that that load distributed. Or for people that are using the insurance, but also the people that really don't use it too much that they'd rather see maybe just a little bit on premiums and a little bit on the the plan design change that way it's kind of fairly. Put across the various dynamics of people who might use it or might not. Also speaking with supervisors, they they begged us just to take it back to Council and let City absorb this, so that this doesn't come out of people's raises. Just some. Just some feedback that I that I had received. Reba White 12:01 Well, and I don't know, Tasha, like the actual number. So even though you know 316 people hit the 750 single deductible. So that's, I mean when you have. 1300 members on the plan. I mean, we don't have an exact cost of what we're going to get because that's if they hit the new raise deductible or Max out of pocket so. Bill Nary 12:30 Right. Reba White 12:30 It's gonna be a lower number. So the 112 on the family coverage. Of the 2250, I mean you're looking at. Now raising it, not we're probably not going to see 112 people hit that. We're maybe going to see 80. Bill Nary 12:49 Right. Reba White 12:49 So that's the kind of money that we're bringing in for revenue, not not what's stated here. 'Cause, you're raising it? Christena Barney 13:01 Well, the the other thing is by doing that, you're you're hoping that? Driving some consumerism too. Bill Nary 13:14 Correct. Christena Barney 13:14 You're you're also by doing this, pushing out some more communication about, you know, our. Other programs that we have. You know our cost saving programs so that they're, yeah, smart shopper and all these other programs that we have overlaying that you know, even though we're doing this increase, even though we're making some plan design changes, we have all of these other things. Reba White 13:29 Smart shopper, everything. Christena Barney 13:41 To help you better utilize your plan and save money other ways so that we can culture shift. And hopefully drive some consumerism on our plan. Bill Nary 13:56 Well, even to answer the question like Eli had raised to him of you know, can we ask the Council to absorb it? And, you know, I guess I look at it and go, you know, I can. We've had this conversation in the past, right? I mean, we were looking, if you're looking say we do option 2, right? You're not changing any deductible. You're only changing the Max out of pocket for an individual by 250 bucks, which is what? 11% is. 12% somewhere in there. So I know probably gonna go. Oh, my gosh, they raised 11% and I only got a 2 1/2 percent increase. But you're 2 1/2 percent increase of your base wages is a whole lot more money than this 250. And again, it doesn't apply to everybody. So I it is sometimes difficult to explain to folks that. The differences are not apples to apples when you're talking about percentages for this increase versus percentages to your base wages increase and of course. There is flex. Flex does probably increase by, I would imagine the the flex can cover that with whatever the slight increase they generally have to that. So I mean the reality is is I think you know again it goes back to that consumerism and getting people to use the tools that we've put in place to help them save some money. And and there's other ways to message this to people. You know I don't. I guess one of the things is. As a group, we've had this conversation in the past. Is the more we keep, you know, wanting to absorb it, the less incentive it is to find ways on your own to help use the tools. We are also purchasing for them to be able to use to help save money. So if you never have to have to understand any of it or deal with it, then you just don't. And if you need to because you do want to have to address these deductible changes. And maybe you would be more incentive. To use it. Is that fair, I mean? Alexander Freitag 16:02 Makes sense to me. Reba White 16:03 It's a great messaging tool. During open enrollment I mean. I used it when we had our huge rate increase. I think the very first year I got on board here and. We used the the increase into saying here's how you combat this, and here's what we're giving to you with this increase because we're not taking away and we're not doing these types of things. And so I think it's just a really good mess messaging. Tool and as long as Flyers are available for all the programs from BCI and those types of things, it really makes it an easier push from like my perspective. And Alex, I didn't mean to cut you off. Alexander Freitag 16:47 No, you're fine. No, I was just gonna kind of chime in and say I did talk to some folks too. And you know, the feedback was sort of across the board. I mean, most of them. I'll tell you what I did discover. Maybe more than anything else, they don't understand it. Most most definitely don't understand the the the the monetary side of it. So it took some time to kind of go through the whole thing, but I I think the bulk of them were more willing to absorb it on this deductible. Whole piece than maybe on the actual premium side of the equation, but there were some that were both ways, I mean. Bill Nary 17:21 Uh-huh. Alexander Freitag 17:26 They, you know, I didn't get a concise, you know, answer from anybody. Eli Daniel 17:32 Yeah, I I generally feel like I don't. We're gonna change behaviors by just upping it and putting out a message. I I I hate to sound pessimistic, but I just as Alex said, there's there's a lot of people that just don't understand how it works. Alexander Freitag 17:47 Yeah. Eli Daniel 17:47 I I had to sit through and go through a scenario where somebody broke breaks their leg and explain how how you hit the deductibles and then you hit them out of pocket and how all of that flows. So I'm not sure. I don't know. It's hard. I I I gotta admit, I I didn't fully like embrace all of our all of our environment until I was part of our. Committee. So it's it's one of those things where it's like you just ignore it until you got to use it and then when you got to use it, you're just in the emergency room just handing out credit cards. And it just it just happens. Bill Nary 18:16 Yep. No, and I and I would agree. I mean, the people that. Have you know consistent medical issues of any type? You know, whether it's, you know, chronic medical issues like high blood pressure or diabetes or whatever, they get this. They understand how this works, so they hit it all the time. They get these numbers. They understand the numbers. You know, I I think the way the world works for most people, slight increases are understandable. No one likes them. I mean, I. Get it? I don't like paying more for meat or eggs or whatever. I mean, I get it, but I get that. That's the way things are that things cost more money and there's no way to avoid that. So I think the slider one, I mean if we're you know to try to build any type of surplus into this trust. You know, to be fair to the Council and the mayor, they've also asked us not to over. Fund the trust. Either right? They've asked us to try to keep it in a fairly small margin. They recognize, you know, we we pick these numbers. We base these on best projections. You know, we hope we're high on the projections that that it comes in lower but it may not and it could come in higher and we all have to come back for more funding. But. You know, we're trying to be responsible of this and you know, it feels like, you know, as much as I would love to go a little higher. Gave us a little more room. I don't think that's the responsible way to go, even though that might feel better in some regard. It isn't necessarily better for our members, and isn't necessarily better for the overall budget. So it feels like option two is kind of that sweet spot of kind of hitting what? Need. Scott Howell 20:15 One thing I'll add to there's. I think benchmarking is always something that you consider. There's been some recent press about benefits benchmarking in the Treasure Valley. That that 2500 out of pocket is still super competitive. It's in line with with Boise's PPO plan. Their deductible is a little bit lower, but it also has a $2500 out of pocket. And and those are the lowest. Two out of pockets among municipal employers in the valley, so. Bill Nary 20:50 Mm-hmm. Scott Howell 20:52 It still still leaves you in a pretty competitive spot. Bill Nary 20:57 Well, then again, I don't know that. I don't think. I mean, I'm not the messaging person, but I mean the fact that the individual deductible, we're not planning on changing. The the proportion that we're asking the city to fund for dependents, we're not asking to change. We're not. I mean, there's things that probably like, I think we found in our discussions with different departments that would really. Probably be more problematic for employees. It would feel more like. It's a little bit more difficult to adjust to. Is a little different than just. Again, the out of pocket Max. You know, again, if you hit this honestly and I I I can't tell. I don't recall mine specifically, but if you're at 22, fifty 2500 is probably not that significant of a jump for most people. It's really the, you know, if you went from 2250 up to the 3000 or 3500. Yeah, you would definitely notice that more from out of your pocketbook. But 250? To be honest, I don't. I don't think most people would. I think it's. I think if it puts us in a a more positive position, I think that's OK. It makes sense. Christena Barney 22:23 In favor of option 2. Bill Nary 22:28 Yeah. I I I think I think it makes the most sense. I guess we would need. Is this a a point for a motion? Christena Barney 22:38 It's not. I'll make a motion to select option 2 for the plan year 2026. Alexander Freitag 22:46 I'd second that. Bill Nary 22:49 OK. The move is seconded to move our medical plan into this new option 2, with a increase to the out of Pocket Max. Deductible to from 2250 to 2500, with all the other remaining costs remaining the same as the current year. So all those in favor say aye. Christena Barney 23:10 Hi. Eli Daniel 23:10 Hi. Alexander Freitag 23:11 Aye. Bill Nary 23:11 Opposed. OK, is unanimous. And then and so do we need to talk about dental and vision at this point? Tasha Norman 23:25 Yeah. Reba White 23:25 Yeah, if we can go over the projections. Christena Barney 23:36 Before we move on, are we wanting to do any other changes on the contribution side? Bill Nary 23:47 In what way? Christena Barney 23:49 Are we wanting to increase contributions at all? This was the planned design side. We've had some conversations about contributions. Are we wanting to make any changes to the contribution side? To increase our trust funding. Eli Daniel 24:06 I think Cindy had mentioned just quick math last time right about if we bumped it up 25 bucks for just people on the family plan that would, that covers our gap right there too, right? So. Bill Nary 24:18 Mm-hmm. Eli Daniel 24:20 I don't know. Like I said I I had some people that were in favor of doing a little combination. To. Distribute. The load across the various. Types of members that use it and don't but. Yeah, at this point, do we need to if we're, if we're already going over our .7 by a little bit? Bill Nary 24:50 I guess there's always two questions on on this on this part right is? What do you and I just said? Do we need to and and then the second question is what should we right? Do we need to start moving people slightly? And I guess what's the mood of the group? Christena Barney 25:13 I would say we. I would say we need to and the reason for that is the conversation that Scott brought up before in that. Although we may not need it right now because we filled our gap, we know we are going to continue to have some issues. And if you look at our trends, we have three to five year years of good years and then three to five years of bad years. And so we have had now one really bad year. We're likely to have another two to three, maybe four bad years. And so if we don't move these levers now, we are going to have to make some very significant changes in the next coming years. But if we move these levers now, we may be able to to to fund. Our trust to not have to make some significant changes three and five years down the road. Bill Nary 26:14 Right. Christena Barney 26:16 So right now in the state that the city's in, in the current situation that we're in, we have the justification to say we need to make these changes and they're not so significant that people can't swallow them. We, you know, like we, we have the justification to. Say we were previously you several years ago, a 7525 split, we moved to an 8020. It's not, you know, out of the realm of possibilities to say we. We need to move back to that 7525 split for the time being to re energize or renew or trust balance and we can move back to that once we get to a better place. It's my opinion, one Member of this board, but I think that's the the fiscally responsible thing for us to do right now, knowing that we have been in a deficit for going on 3/4 quarters now. Alexander Freitag 27:16 It does have the impact. Bill Nary 27:17 And what would that do to individuals? Well, would that cost be we had that table up a second ago. Was that the table? We we should be looking at? Tasha Norman 27:25 Yeah. Let me show you here. Reba White 27:31 Don't know if you had the 75 breakdown or is it just the 3% increase? Christena Barney 27:39 Know if we need to shift that far, I mean, but just doing something. I think we need to do something. Reba White 27:43 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Bill Nary 27:46 Well, and I I would agree that if we don't do something again, it's the same conversation we we. I've just had a number of conversations with the Council about compensation. Again, if you don't do a little every so often, or at least every year, then you have to. Do a big jump all at once and I want to avoid. I think that's what Christine is kind of telling us is, you know, if we don't do a little bit now then. Two years from now, or three years from now, we're going to say, well, now we have to increase it. 10% instead of two to 3% now versus 10 later and 10 later is going to be awfully hard to swallow. Scott Howell 28:25 So one thing I just want to point out on this on this sheet is that. Tasha Norman 28:30 Welcome. Scott Howell 28:35 The the total rate that we're showing is assuming the 17% increase. If the target is a certain percentage split with employees. The the employee contributions are naturally going to go up 17% if we maintain the percentage split that that we have and what this sheet shows is essentially is that is the trust bearing the entire increase and then shifting. So in that top box, the trust bears the. Entire increase in the bottom boxes. We shift a very small portion of the increase to the employees. And I guess on the. Kind of on the other end of that spectrum would be if our goal is an 8020 split. That would result in, you know, a 17% premium increase for. Just to maintain that 8020 split. If that makes sense. Tasha Norman 29:45 And I knew when I put this table together, I knew we didn't want to make a huge impact to employees. And so the percentage increase is just the 2% on top of what they're currently paying now. But also keeping that employee contribution at 0 because I know Eli and a lot of the trustees were in agreement that that was important. Bill Nary 30:05 Yep. Tasha Norman 30:05 So in this chart these I have them all the way up to 6%, but. The monthly impact is pretty pretty minimal. More on each of those tears. Bill Nary 30:17 Well, I guess to me I and we kind of we didn't really ultimately land on a prioritization last time. But definitely, I mean, I think definitely tosha's right. I think the group said keeping the employees at 0% contribution right now is still the probably the top. Goal. And to be honest, I would. I would rather look at, I think for me, I think the slider increases to contribution is a much better. For. Palatable type of way to go than the than changing the 8020. I think the 8020 is a very can be a very negative message to some folks. I think it's. I think it it was tough to move to the 75. When we did, it was tough to move them back to the 80. I don't know that that's the that's the right move today. If there isn't a financial need. I agree with Christina though. We need to figure out if we do say we did a 2% or 3%. That is that gonna be enough to get us kind of in the in that direction? And that's just again, mine's just one one person's perspective. So. Eli Daniel 31:33 And just clarify this is 2% of the 17% not 2% of? Reba White 31:41 Plus, you know. Eli Daniel 31:42 Yeah. Scott Howell 31:42 Yeah, that's right. So just doing some quick math here. Eli Daniel 31:44 Yeah. Scott Howell 31:48 The 2% employee contribution increase. The the employee share of the of the family premium goes to 17% instead of 20%. So it it actually gets more generous. Than as a percentage than what it is today. Bill Nary 32:09 Hmm. Scott Howell 32:12 Because. If the overall funding increases 17%. And the employees are only taking 2% of that the trust. Christena Barney 32:24 Absorbing the rest. Scott Howell 32:25 Is is absorbing the rest. Reba White 32:27 Move. And trying to make that up with just the deduct out of pocket change. Scott Howell 32:34 Yeah. Christena Barney 32:37 Which I don't know with where we're at. The trust should be doing. I think we need to, at a minimum maintain the 80, the integrity of the 8020. Alexander Freitag 32:47 Hi. Yeah, I think I kind of agree with that. Christena Barney 32:57 So if if that's what we do, then maybe the funding that the trust receives is just simply maintaining that 8020. Bill Nary 33:10 So where does that fall on this chart then? Scott Howell 33:15 Yeah, that is. I don't believe that is on this chart. Bill Nary 33:19 OK. Reba White 33:22 Can you Scroll down Tasha to see the 4% please? Scott Howell 33:22 Again. Again, just doing some quick math. If if the city contribution and the employee contribution both went up 17%, it takes the. It takes the family, the employee contribution for family coverage to 283. Christena Barney 33:56 OK so. Bill Nary 33:56 And what is it currently? It's 249, no. Scott Howell 33:59 24242 I think. Reba White 34:00 242. Bill Nary 34:02 42. Reba White 34:04 And some change. Scott Howell 34:07 So to maintain the 8020. It's. You know, it makes that increase, but more significant. Bill Nary 34:18 Right. It's almost 50 bucks a month for a family. Scott Howell 34:21 Mm-hmm. Christena Barney 34:27 So we do make up some funding. By doing that. Scott Howell 34:38 Yes. Alexander Freitag 34:38 But that's kind of where we're at, isn't it, really, in a way here, I mean. Christena Barney 34:50 It is current day, but I think what I'm trying to understand is do we need to do more? Do we need to? Do we need to move the needle more? And and by the way of contributions. Scott Howell 35:04 I think. If if you're doing a benefit change and you make enough of a contribution change to just maintain the 8020, I think the the dollar value of that. Is between those two is pretty significant. I don't know that you need more than that. Alexander Freitag 35:32 I mean, maybe it hits what we're trying to do, which is certainly funds appropriately, but make this change as least impactful as possible. But still, this still gets everybody's just skin in the game and kind of targeting the right group. We've talked about that a little bit, right in terms of you know. The dependence. Or maybe the area where we're seeing a little bit? More of an impact to the trust, right? So all those things are kind of checking off a lot of boxes. If you if you roll this way. Scott Howell 36:24 Yeah. And if the if the decision is to just maintain the 8020 split, we can get you an exhibit showing exactly what those numbers look like. And if that causes you to want to reevaluate. You know, you can certainly do that, but. Christena Barney 36:44 I think that's that's where I'm at just to maintain the 8020, but interested in everyone else's thoughts. Bill Nary 36:53 I think we need. I I I think that's important too. I do think that we can maintain that obviously, yeah. I mean, obviously it's a fairly significant increase. I mean, you know, based back on what Eli said earlier in this conversation, right? Our employees gonna feel like, you know, again. Now, now that does feel like it cuts into their race, right? I mean, now you know, for some of the people that have families on their plan. A $50.00 a month increase is probably what gonna feel like about what their raise was to begin with. In general. So now that percentage on top of your. Increase the base wages will feel like it's pretty much the same. Or pretty close for a lot of people. How does everyone feel about that? Alexander Freitag 37:53 Not great. Bill Nary 37:56 Yeah. But I mean, the money, you know, I mean one one part of the conversation is the money has to come from something, right? Alexander Freitag 38:02 But there's is there. Yep. Bill Nary 38:08 And if if you know, we ask the city to absorb it. I. I. I guess I I would think the Council could fairly say back to us as the trustees or whatever. I mean, again, this is a. Out of a partnership, I mean, we're already covering 80% of it from the cities coffers anyway. What are the employees? You know, portion of that to help you know, sharing some of the cost, I mean again? There's the only other way to do this is to lower that family. One is to then start, and we've talked about this too, and I'm not saying to go there, but employee contribution. Would it? Probably at some point have to go from zero to something. But we're not ready to go. Reba White 39:03 So is there? Christena Barney 39:03 It doesn't. Bill Nary 39:04 There we haven't been ready to go there. Christena Barney 39:05 It doesn't feel great, but at the same time, to your point bill, I mean it's 20% of, you know this large premium. To Scott's point, if you look at the benchmarking for competitors in our area, you know our Max out of pocket, our deductible and now even to move it to the 280 and some change it's still competitive. In the market for a family plan. Bill Nary 39:34 OK. Christena Barney 39:37 And we as you know, the the Benefits Committee and the trust really need to do what we can to drive consumerism on our plan, which a large component of that is our employees having some skin in the game. Bill Nary 39:52 Hmm. Christena Barney 39:53 And so I think as fiduciary responsible parties of this, we need to make sure that we're balancing all of those things. And part of that is we have to put some of the cost on the employees and it doesn't feel great. But at the end of the day. Bill Nary 40:07 All right. Christena Barney 40:11 It the cost has to be paid. Aid and we have to fund the trust and we have to pay the bills. Reba White 40:15 Well. So we we only decided on doing the Max if we're saying that we need employees percentages going up and that's getting into their raises. We have the ability to do deductible and Max out of pocket and receive more funds and maybe not push that right on employees the. First, go ahead. I know you guys just voted on too, but it's like if if we're looking at a full 17 to. The employees. And they're paying 280. I mean, does that say then OK? We don't need to do that. And we need to do option 4. That was on Tosha's list of doing the deductible and Max out of pocket, and then we'll see. Or are we looking for actual funds? And that's why we're choosing contributions. Christena Barney 41:11 I was looking at actual funds, not just cost savings. Reba White 41:13 Yeah. Correct. OK. And and I know we just talked about the 8020, but our spouses, not children per SE, but our spouses are the most expensive. So it's not just family 'cause, I know several employees who have 8:00 to 9:00 children on the plan, and they're not the ones costing us money. Bill Nary 41:30 Right. Reba White 41:36 It's the it's the spouses. And so I don't know if we want to try to increase. The employee spouse plan to be closer to. To the employee family plan, because really a family is a difference of one child or more. But in the in reality it's one child which is not the cost. Inhibitors. Bill Nary 42:05 So are we able to? And this is because I just don't know the answer. Are we able to legally? Raise the cost of the employees spouse contribution percentage higher. Than the other tiers. Scott Howell 42:23 Yes. Reba White 42:24 It's a spousal surcharge kind of thing, then isn't it? Bill Nary 42:24 K. Yeah, probably. That's not the term I would use, but yes, I I think that's exactly what it is. But, but you're right. I think that's where I mean we we know. That's where the cost is. I mean like it or not, that's the reality of the way the plan functions. So if we are trying to put make back to what? Eli's got some feedback on. Putting the cost to the people that are costing the plan the most, you know we we left the deductibles where they were. So that puts everybody in the same boat as it is. We've raised the deductible slightly for the total out of pocket. That really only impacts the. People. People that actually use the plan to that degree. And now if we've really saved, would it make more sense to increase the? And I'm I'm. I'm just picking a number. So I'm not saying this number, but say you increase the employee spouse line 20%. Instead of 17, but you increase the other ones to 16. Is that enough funding? And does that again? I know it feels like we're targeting a. A work group. But the reality is from the plant that's that's the group that's cost the most. Should they then contribute a bigger portion of it? Because that's where it is. Now I get it. Employees are gonna say, well, I have my spouse. I don't know. We don't use it. I get it. But in general, that tear is the one where the biggest cost is coming from. Should they contribute a slightly higher contribution than the other tiers? Eli Daniel 44:09 I don't think he can. Reba White 44:09 So This is why fire has so many tears on their union plan. Because our fire union plan has the employee only an employee spouse, they have employee, spouse, one child, they employee children, they have employee family, they have employee spouse 3. I mean, they go into so many different tiers because they know what is costing them more on their plan. And I'm just throwing that out there that we. Bill Nary 44:38 Right. Reba White 44:39 We only have, you know, our five to like their seven, which it's harder to manage administratively, but it gets them to the point of who's actually using what benefit and what should people be accurately paying. Bill Nary 44:46 Right. Eli Daniel 44:56 I don't feel like just changing that one line's gonna impact us greatly or put the cost on the people using it. If if we only have 53 enrollees on that one particular line, cause 75% of the spouses are probably gonna be in an employ. Family plan, right? Reba White 45:12 I was saying both. Yeah, yeah. Eli Daniel 45:14 Yeah. Christena Barney 45:14 So the the more effective way to do this is, more often than not, you have a spouse that is a high cost spouse on your plan that has coverage elsewhere, has coverage options elsewhere, and so you provide some sort of incentive for them to not take our plan. And be covered on someone else's plan. And so it's an incentive rather than a surcharge for them to go somewhere else and be covered on someone else's plan and not be covering their claims on our plan. And that's that's a more positive message. It's a more positive way to manage this and navigate it and then we don't have a separate tier. We don't have all of that kind of stuff and we're not paying claims on these individuals that are on our plan. Alexander Freitag 46:11 Do you have any idea? Bill Nary 46:13 How how do you? I guess. Go ahead. Christena Barney 46:15 We can't hear you, Alex. Alexander Freitag 46:19 I was just going to say, can you hear me now? Christena Barney 46:22 Beverly. Alexander Freitag 46:24 Love this computer. I was just gonna say, do we know how many people that would be? Christena Barney 46:33 I don't know. We would have to do some sort of survey. Bill Nary 46:38 So I guess couple different ways to skin that cat, right? I mean, I think in in Eli's right that many of these, you know, may not if we if we just affected the employees spouse line that's probably not getting to the root cause. Do we, you know, do we really collapse the employee, child and employee children into one tier instead of two and and go with the higher rate for that? One and would that get us there? Or again, is it all it ends up in the family plan side? I don't know. I mean, I I don't know. I mean I I think all of these are valid. I don't have AI, don't have a sense on what's the best way to go. I do think it does make sense to have some higher costs to the ones that are costing more. I just don't know how to get there so. Christena Barney 47:35 So all great discussion is, is there anything that we feel like we need to move on for 2026 or are these things concepts that we want to have further discussion on and maybe implement for 27? Bill Nary 47:54 Or do we need to make at least a slight adjustment based on our best information today on whatever we can do to move forward but continue to study? Where do we go for a longer term for 27? So we shouldn't just put a pin in it for 26, but do something and then continue to actually work on a better solution for 27 without feeling like we have to make a decision. On the whole whole thing right now. Christena Barney 48:24 Yes. Bill Nary 48:24 But not but not do nothing. Christena Barney 48:28 I think where I'm at is maintaining our 8020. That's gonna help with our funding. It puts some onus on the employees, help us drive our consumerism. We've got our plan design change that we're implementing. 'Cause, we do need to make final decisions like today so that we could get our documents together for DOI. Bill Nary 48:47 Yes. Yes. Christena Barney 48:52 But that's kind of where I'm at. And then continue these conversations on what we need to do to. Make contribution changes, whether it's spousal, whether we wanna change the 8020, what, whatever that looks like going forward. Eli Daniel 49:09 So if we true our renewal numbers up with the 8020, I think our family rate that went up to like 280, that was kind of rough. Bill Nary 49:17 Yep. Eli Daniel 49:17 Rough guess. Really fast. And with that, we would still do an additional contribution limit to increase right or not contribution family out of pocket, right or out of pocket in general. Reba White 49:29 Yeah, both. Eli Daniel 49:30 So do both. OK. I don't. Bill Nary 49:36 Yeah. And then and then we and then, yeah. Eli Daniel 49:36 I don't like. I don't like it, but. I I understand that the need. Bill Nary 49:45 Well, and again, I think I don't that we're going to like any of them. I mean, the reality is, but I think the reality is what it is. Alexander Freitag 49:50 Yeah. Bill Nary 49:52 I mean it again. There is a cost to these things and. We, as a trust can't continue to absorb it. We as the city can't just continue to absorb it, and the best we can do is, you know, I guess part of the messaging is we will continue to evaluate on whether or not we can do it in a different way in the future. But we really can. Make that decision. Today, to try to create. I mean, we are totally shooting in the dark if we just pick random numbers and say let's just increase this one by 15 and this one by 12 and this one by eighteen, I mean there were just, we are really just playing darts. Eli Daniel 50:24 Yeah. Yeah, I thought so. Let's move on it today and. Push forward because otherwise we're going to find ourselves in a deeper hole in six months. Bill Nary 50:42 Yep. Eli Daniel 50:42 It'd be nice to say that we'll start out 26 with a good foot on the ground. Bill Nary 50:48 Trying to save Scott all the slings and arrows for the next presentation to the Council so. So I guess we need a motion to whatever Christina said. Christena Barney 51:02 Well, that's it's just what it is today. Maintaining our 8020 split. Bill Nary 51:06 OK. So that would be then just for clarity for the record, then that'd be increasing all of the contribution portions by the same percentage for the employee, spouse, employee, child, employee, children, employee, family by the same percentage, so. Reba White 51:08 Thank you. Yeah, same it. Bill Nary 51:28 Approximately 17% for all of those tiers. Reba White 51:32 And that, Eli, it's gonna be two 7234. Eli Daniel 51:38 272 OK, about 30 bucks, all right. Reba White 51:43 For Todd's chart that he gives me every year. Eli Daniel 51:46 Yeah. Bill Nary 51:48 OK. So I don't know that we need a motion for that and we're just saying it or or do you think we do Christina for DOI's purpose? Eli Daniel 51:50 It all comes. Christena Barney 51:57 I don't think so. Bill Nary 51:59 OK. Christena Barney 51:59 I'm capturing it in the Minutes as well. Bill Nary 52:01 OK. All right, well, dental vision. Eli Daniel 52:13 Do you mind if I mention something really fast? I like this whole time. Like all I can think of is. But what can we do to get people more aware of these? Because I I hate saying, hey, let's just stick it to the employees for for not being better consumers. I'm like, can we get these get more of our employees on our our committee, so they're actively involved. Maybe we put get a like a one year rotation for for people just so that they can become a little more aware of what we're doing on a on a monthly basis. Just to try and keep our costs in control, because I I love it, if we could say at the end of the day, hey, we're doing everything we can to make sure that everybody's educated and aware of what deductibles are and and what the coinsurance you know. What the functions of our health plan are, because I I hate, I hate using that as a justification to ask the employees to pay more, you know. Christena Barney 53:07 Well, that's that's kind of the purpose and function of our benefits committee is the representatives on our benefits committee are supposed to be taking the information that we share there in addition to what we're sharing out and sharing it at staff meetings and having the conversations and sharing. Eli Daniel 53:12 Right. Christena Barney 53:25 That information, in addition to these trust meetings, being public and. Eli Daniel 53:29 Totally agree. I I just. I don't think that people are showing up. And I I like. I feel like if there's there's something I can do as a trustee to to make sure that that's happening more or and that's where I was saying, hey, let's rotate people on. Christena Barney 53:34 Mm-hmm. Bill Nary 53:41 Well. Eli Daniel 53:44 An annual basis so we can get more people involved. Bill Nary 53:48 I you know, I I'm just. I mean, I feel. I feel for what you're saying. I mean the compensation or the the Benefits Committee is a great example, right? We seem to have people come and go. They don't show up for months. They don't come. We don't. They're busy. I get it. It's not a priority. And then again the information's not getting back. I I get it. I don't know how to make them or unaware why. Again, we could have this conversation at our next benefits meeting. So it really matters to come to these things and if you can't come, somebody else needs to go. I'm with you. Eli Daniel 54:24 Yeah. I'm. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you, Christina. I I get what you're saying. That's and that's what I was alluding to was our our benefits committee was just getting more involvement in that particular arena. Christena Barney 54:36 And we've tossed around the idea of doing that. The problem with that is it is so complex and without some sort of foundational understanding of how benefits work rotating people through. Kind of slows down the conversations that we need to have. And so. I mean, and we and we can continue to have the conversation on what we can do and how how it would work. But I'm not closed off to the idea. It's just how do we make it work and still be able to get the things done? We need to do in those meetings. Eli Daniel 55:15 Yeah, it'd be nice to have just a better indicator of accountability for people that you know, if you don't show up three times, you're fired. Christena Barney 55:24 Yeah. Eli Daniel 55:24 Sent them a letter or something. I don't know. Just get. Christena Barney 55:25 So. Reba White 55:28 You can write that letter. Bill Nary 55:31 Well, and again, it's getting the information back to their work groups, right? That's the tough part. And you know, and again we've we've tried to expand with some of them for the larger work groups. Christena Barney 55:35 Mm-hmm. Reba White 55:36 Candice. Back to homes. Christena Barney 55:38 S. Bill Nary 55:41 I mean, Parks is a very diverse work group with a lot of locations, public works, same thing, police, same thing. It's real tough. Eli Daniel 55:50 Yeah. Anyway, I'm sorry to interrupt. Bill Nary 55:51 So. Eli Daniel 55:52 We can continue on 'cause. We're getting close. Bill Nary 55:55 Sure. Tasha Norman 56:00 Hey, Scott, this is your delta dental projection. Scott Howell 56:02 All right. So similar. Structure to the medical projections that we looked at for dental or actuaries or using an annual trend basis of 4.8%. We take a look back at 24 months of claims. Give a little bit heavier weight to the most recent 12 months of claims. And then apply the that 4.8% annual trend to make a projection on what we think claims will be next year. That calculation is on the next. The next slide. And then. So our our projections that there will be 4 just under $459,000 in claims in the 26 plan year. Next slide breaks that down into a A per employee per month of. $95.15. And then on the next slide, we add in the administrative fees from Delta Dental. For a total cost projection and compare that to the current funding. So total projected cost of $487,835 compared to current funding of four 38571. Results in an 11.2%. Recommended funding adjustment. The next slide shows what that actually does to the to the current rates. So you can see that here. You know, on on each of the different tiers what that 11.2% adjustment does. So as a as a dollar amount. You know, quick math is just under $50,000 annually on the on the dental if like we talked about at the beginning of the meeting. The. The contribution from the city. Is 17% across the board. You know that covers the dental. If. If it's more by. You know by line of coverage. This doesn't quite require as much as, as the medical does. As far as a percentage goes. Any questions on? How we calculate that? Bill Nary 58:43 No. Tasha Norman 58:48 OK. Let's show vision here. Scott Howell 58:56 So again same methodology. Vision is trending lower than medical and dental at 2.6% a year. But on the next slide, you can see again looking back 24 months. An applying trend. To to those different time periods, a little bit heavier weight on the most recent 12 months, we are projecting just over $99,000 in vision claims. For 26. Which is $17.22 per employee per month. We add in the administrative expense. Of 17 and a half, $1000 gets to a total projected cost of 616,863. We're currently funding just over 117,000. So this this shows an adjustment of -.4% is needed. As you might recall, whenever this happens, we always recommend just holding the current funding. To help build a little reserve. Bill Nary 1:00:08 Sure. Scott Howell 1:00:09 You know, in this case it's kind of pennies, but. Always easier to just keep things flat rather than adjust them a few cents. Bill Nary 1:00:19 Yep, I would agree. It sounds like we could do the keep the vision flat. Do that slight increase on the delta. What about Willamette? Does that Willamette have the same thing, or is willamina rate? Scott Howell 1:00:41 Willamette is fully insured. Reba White 1:00:41 The women tell those. Mm-hmm. Tasha Norman 1:00:41 Well. Bill Nary 1:00:43 OK. Scott Howell 1:00:44 So that they. They've given us. Reba White 1:00:50 Give me one nine. Tasha Norman 1:00:51 5.9% increase on our premium. Scott Howell 1:00:52 5.9%, which is what we're seeing from them kind of across the board in, in their model, they tend to. Be pretty pooled. So all of their groups get about the same increase. Bill Nary 1:01:08 Yes. So do we need a motion to accept all of those? Christina, do you think? Christena Barney 1:01:20 Yeah. Bill Nary 1:01:22 K. We just did a motion to accept those delta dental and. Vision projections and recommendation. Christena Barney 1:01:36 Make a motion to accept. Eli Daniel 1:01:36 All right. Second. Sorry, did Bill make the motion or do I have a second or? Bill Nary 1:01:42 I was asking if we, I said we needed a motion. Eli Daniel 1:01:45 I'll make that motion. Sorry. Bill Nary 1:01:46 OK. Eli Daniel 1:01:48 So sorry. Bill Nary 1:01:49 That's OK. Christena Barney 1:01:50 I'll second it. Scott Howell 1:01:50 It's my favorite. That's my favorite line in these things. So moved. Bill Nary 1:01:53 Yes. Scott Howell 1:01:54 What? Whatever he just said. Bill Nary 1:01:55 Letter registered. OK, so it's been moved and seconded to accept those recommendations for both the dental and vision for 2026. All those in favor say aye. Aye. OK, those are approved. Alexander Freitag 1:02:07 Aye. Bill Nary 1:02:11 Anything else before we move on? Is that we? Are we covered for what we need to do to get our paperwork started for DOI? Christena Barney 1:02:22 Yes. Scott Howell 1:02:24 Just a quick probably a little bit ignorant question for me. Are our dental contributions also a percentage? That we just intend to maintain. Reba White 1:02:33 Goodbye. Christena Barney 1:02:36 8020. Scott Howell 1:02:37 OK. Bill Nary 1:02:37 Yes. Scott Howell 1:02:43 So we'll get a, we get an exhibit prepared that shows. All of those as well. Bill Nary 1:02:53 OK. Is there any other update we need? I just have those on as our standard from either Blue Cross or Gallagher's. Anything, Dan, you need us to know about or anything else from Scott or Tasha that you need us to know about before we are done for this month? Daniel Malloy 1:03:06 I. Nothing else from Blue Cross. Bill Nary 1:03:11 OK. Scott Howell 1:03:12 Yep, not from us either. Bill Nary 1:03:14 OK. All right. Well, next month we have our external meeting with our normal stuff. There's other topics we need to go. Just let me know ahead of time. We go ahead and take a motion to adjourn. Alexander Freitag 1:03:30 I'll make that motion. Eli Daniel 1:03:33 OK. Bill Nary 1:03:33 Move in a second to do. Adjourn all those in favor, say aye. Christena Barney 1:03:38 OK. Alexander Freitag 1:03:38 I. Bill Nary 1:03:39 I we are adjourned. Thank you, Tasha. Thank you Scott for doing all that work and getting all that information. Really appreciate it. You could now just find us the money somewhere for things that would be even better, but one one step at a time. Scott Howell 1:03:51 Yeah. Well, we'll work on it being better news for for next time, right? Christena Barney 1:03:57 Moofoo. Bill Nary 1:03:57 It's all good. Tasha Norman 1:03:58 One day. One day we will get to deliver good news. Reba White 1:04:01 Can the trust play the lottery is. Bill Nary 1:04:01 It's all good. Yeah, we have that trust bake sale and car wash that's next month. Bake sale, car wash and then we'll go from there. Christena Barney 1:04:06 Thank you. Tasha Norman 1:04:07 I think you're onto something Ruba. Reba White 1:04:13 Yeah, good job. OK. Thank you. Bill Nary 1:04:15 All right, all right. Scott Howell 1:04:16 Thanks guys. Christena Barney 1:04:16 Thank you. Bill Nary 1:04:16 Thank you everyone. I appreciate it. Appreciate everybody's time. Reba White 1:04:19 OK. Scott Howell 1:04:20 Right. Bill Nary 1:04:20 Thank you. Bill Nary stopped transcription