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HomeMy WebLinkAbout3-18-26 TranscriptEmployee Benefits Trust Board Meeting-20260318_110142-Meeting Recording March 18, 2026, 5:01PM 51m 16s Bill Nary started transcription Bill Nary 0:03 1101 on March 18th, 2020 twenty six at 11:00. So I will call this meeting to order of the city. Meridian Employee benefits trust. And start off with taking role. Bil Neri, president Alex rytag. Alexander Freitag 0:20 Present. Bill Nary 0:22 Sean Harper. Shawn Harper 0:24 Present. Bill Nary 0:25 Eli Daniel. Oh, there's Christina Barney joining us from the car. Christena Barney 0:32 I'm on. I'm on vacation this week. Bill Nary 0:35 Yeah. So and then also we have Scott Howell here from Gallagher as well as Dan Moy from Blue Cross and Reba White from City, Meridian, HR. And then Alan Bosch is also joining us as well. So Alan, again, thank you for joining us and thanks everybody for being here. I know it is again spring break for some of you. We start off with approval of the Minutes have a chance to look at the Minutes from last month. Eli Daniel 1:07 I'll make a motion to approve. Bill Nary 1:07 Is the motion to approve. Shawn Harper 1:13 This, Sean, I'll make a motion to approve last month's minutes. Bill Nary 1:15 OK. I think actually, Eli just did, so I'm going to list you as a second there, Sean. Shawn Harper 1:23 2nd. Bill Nary 1:25 Moved a second and approved the Minutes from last month. All those in favor? Say aye. Aye, aye. OK. Eli Daniel 1:31 Aye. Christena Barney 1:31 Aye. Bill Nary 1:34 Next is our our monthly reports experience reports. I guess Reba. Reba White 1:42 Yeah, we did go over these in our Benefits committee meeting, but let me share with you really quick. So new look for the experience reports. You will see the carrier up in the top right corner and the date, so we're what we're looking at. So in total, 475,152 of claims, 181 of RX with the total paid claims, 656 claimants over the stop loss hit as a refund of 49,676. I talked to Scott a little bit. This is just a lag, so this stop loss was hit in 2025, but the claim was paid out in 2026. That's how that worked. For this slide, you will be able to see rolling. So the very last line towards the bottom of January of 26 is what we're kind of looking at. We had a 87.8%. For gross claims. So we're under that 100%, which is great news and I don't know if you can tell when I highlight, but it's gonna be this last line. So again, it's just kind of bigger here, but the 87.8 for loss, it gives us our over 2020 or over 225 stop loss in total claims. This is the prior year, so won't be getting any details of this by if you ever want to kind of see where the trends are leaning, then you can look at the prior year versus where we're at. And then again just. Historical. Claims data. This is. From February of 25 to January of 26. So this is just high claim costs. Again, it's a rolling. So what we want to look at is for 2026, which is the next page, we have had one high paid claim of 55,464. Diagnosis was lower back pain. So no, no real indicators that we've had anything hit as far as January so far. The ruling, so Delta dental, we had our loss ratio at 88.6% for the month of January. Also, good news under that 100. Rolling from January 25 to December of 25, if you want historical data. And then that that 12 months of history for Vision 114.5 for loss ratio, but that is normal. So as I stayed on the benefits committee, typically because our plan renews January one of every year, regardless of when you started the prior year, you can go and get your eye exams done, contact frames, lenses, etc. And so we do see a higher loss ratio January, February just because people, it's a new year, they're just going and getting it done right off the bat. And we can tell that because we have prior plan year experience, so last January. It was 134.3, so being 114 looks pretty good compared to your prior. For the utilization. For claims so this is February 25 to January, but if we move. That's that's all of our medications that we are seeing from again January 25 to February 25 to January 26. And then. Our enrollment type, which normally we don't go over. So any questions? Eli Daniel 5:53 Has there been any anything? Bill Nary 5:54 No, it looks really good for first one. Eli Daniel 5:57 Has there? Has there been any? Kind of foreshadowing for January or for February, March that might throw things into catastrophe for us. Reba White 6:10 Far as employee side. I I do know we'll see the cancer pop up from last year to this year. Obviously rolling into treatment. We will have. I know two or three surgeries coming up at the end of March. So, but those are a more typical surgeries, not not something completely out of base, but those are just the employee stuff that I know. Eli Daniel 6:39 Gotcha. So. Scott Howell 6:39 Any weekly invoices the last six weeks that raise your eyebrows. Reba White 6:44 No, not really. We're staying in the 1:30's about every week or a little bit less, depending on kind of where what we've looked at. And so I have not had a jump scare for 2026 yet. Eli Daniel 6:57 Cool like it? Bill Nary 7:00 Well, that's good. I mean, we're into March, so that's good so far. Reba White 7:06 Yes. Bill Nary 7:07 Any other questions from the group or any other? Inquiries about the lab, about monthly financials. Reba. Reba White 7:17 Monthly financials we are. Let me get that pulled up. Bill Nary 7:21 True. Reba White 7:22 We are in the thick of it with our audit, so I know that's kind of a different topic, but having to pull our financials. On a monthly basis for them as well, even though and they're asking them for March as well. So we we're still in audit mode from DOI and then our financial audit as well. Let me. Get those up. Sorry, I should have been more prepared. Bill Nary 7:55 While she's pulling that up, I'll let the board know I did have a phone call with the auditors maybe two weeks ago and then just part of a normal routine asking about process and fraud prevention issues of any kind, any type of other concerns of any kind and. I I don't have any so. They were pleased about that. They've, you know, consistently, we've been pretty pretty good on on keeping track of that. Again, we're small enough to keep track of. Those you know, types of concerns and certainly no fraudulent types of behavior, so. Reba White 8:32 Yeah. Christena Barney 8:33 Was that I Bailey. Reba White 8:35 So. Bill Nary 8:37 Yes, I think so. Christena Barney 8:37 Like that you had a call with, OK. Bill Nary 8:39 Yes. Yep, Yep, Yep. Christena Barney 8:40 I had one as well. Same thing. Reba White 8:43 Yeah, they're on the fraud side. They've year over year. They haven't shown which we haven't really changed our processes much, but year over year they haven't found any fraudulent type of activity or how we kind of monitor things that has primarily come from DOI on their, you know, eight or ten different. Explanations that they wanted from us, which we have sent in, I don't think we've received a response, have we Christina K? Christena Barney 9:13 No, I will not receive a response on the findings yet. Reba White 9:16 OK. So then as of today, so the last debit was 3/17. So I guess as of yesterday, our available balance is 1.790. Daniel Malloy 9:22 Yeah. Reba White 9:30 This does not include our February contributions. They will have those posted by tomorrow into our account, but you can see that we received at least the COBRA for the City of Meridian. But we have not received the actual. Daniel Malloy 9:45 I. Reba White 9:46 Contributions from February. Bill Nary 9:49 Is that a normal lag? That seems like a three weeks from when those were evident from the employees. Reba White 9:55 Yes. So when we when we went to work day and kind of the beginning of the year, we made the change that we were going to start billing the essentially the payroll department after payroll had ran. So what payroll does is they go, they process their payroll, then a week after payroll has finalized, I send them the billing. They reconcile that to their actual payroll account and then they send the trust the funds. Typically, if there's any changes going on in work day or anything like that, they're looking at then their reconciliation and what I've sent them just to make sure that there's no differences that. During a retro. Typically it's done the second week of March, but because there was a little glitch in our system with. A fire union member transferring to fire administration. We've had to retro some of those changes and payroll is in a lag. So like I said, we should have those funds by tomorrow deposited into the account. Christena Barney 11:13 Reba, do you know approximately how much that contribution will be? So we have an idea of where our account sits in relation to the surplus requirement. Reba White 11:23 Yes. It is. Christena Barney 11:33 I believe the surplus requirements like 2.3 right now. Reba White 11:38 Yes, it is. So we have. 808 two 1-2 coming in for medical. So if I take quick calc. 90. Bill Nary 11:51 Two point 2.6. Alexander Freitag 11:54 Yep. Christena Barney 11:54 That puts us well above it. OK. Thanks. Reba White 11:55 Yeah. And that's just for medical contributions. For dental, we're gonna have. Daniel Malloy 12:01 I. Reba White 12:04 It's typically around 30,000, so 37,000 and VSP. Will be 10,000, so we're we're fine for the surplus requirement and it's just timing wise that it's hitting on the account. Christena Barney 12:23 Thank you. Bill Nary 12:27 Any other questions or concerns from anyone on the financials? OK. Eli Daniel 12:36 Feels comforting after the last 12 months. Bill Nary 12:39 Well, don't get too comfortable, my friend. Eli Daniel 12:41 I know, I know, I'm jinxing it. Sorry. Christena Barney 12:44 Knock on some wood elay, yeah. Reba White 12:45 No. Take it in while we can is what we say. Bill Nary 12:50 I think this is there's wood under here somewhere. OK. Well, our next discussion is Trust Council discussion. I'm gonna. I don't know who should start this off, so I don't know if Christina is that you or someone else before we talk, you know, let Alan talk. We probably should introduce who's on the call as well. So Alan knows who all the people are. But where do you want to start? Christena Barney 13:16 Yep. So we were tasked Alex and I were tasked with finding new legal counsel after ours had previously left. We have a number of issues that are on the forefront with this DOI audit that we're looking for legal counsel to take over and do some reviews and provide some guidance on through that vetting process. We had two individuals that responded, Alan and another individual, Alex and I felt it was appropriate to bring Allan forward and have a conversation with the board. So that we can make a decision on where we go from here. Anything I missed, Alex? Or anything you'd add? Alexander Freitag 13:52 No, I think you you covered it well. So Yep, that was that was the crux of it. Christena Barney 13:56 OK. So we'll go into introduction. So Christina Barney, a trustee. Alexander Freitag 14:03 Alex Breitag, vice chair. Bill Nary 14:06 And I build Erie on the chair. Eli Daniel 14:10 Eli Daniel, trustee. Christena Barney 14:16 That leaves a bit, Sean. Bill Nary 14:18 There he is. Allan Bosch 14:18 Sean. Shawn Harper 14:19 Sean Harper, trustee. Reba White 14:24 I'm Reba White and I am the human resources benefits specialist, so not on the board, but do everything behind the scenes for the board. Christena Barney 14:25 And start your. Eli Daniel 14:36 Everything. Allan Bosch 14:37 Yeah. Thanks. Christena Barney 14:37 And Scott and Dan, please feel free to introduce yourselves as well. Scott Howell 14:41 Yeah, Alan. Alan knows us pretty well, but Scott Howell, benefits consultant with Gallagher. Daniel Malloy 14:49 Strategic account executive with Blue Cross. Allan Bosch 14:52 Yeah, I know. If both Scott and Daniel, we've we've dealt with each other before. All in a positive way, mind you. So. Christena Barney 14:59 Perfect. Allan Bosch 15:00 So. So thank you, Mr. Chairman, as well as all the board members. I think you have a copy of our proposal. I'm just going to give you a little bit of a background of myself, although it does have this and I hate to go through some of this because I don't want to make it sound like one of those. I love me descriptions. But I've been in practice in 79. I've graduated from Creighton University Law School in in Omaha, NE. I moved out here actually with a big aid accounting firm in their tax department and and just by chance the the gentleman I was with in an office with Tush was also their employee benefits tax guy. So I ended up when he left the firm, everyone was used to walking into that office. So when he left the firm to move back to twin, everybody kept coming in that office and asking me questions about employee benefits. Predominantly, of course, in the private sector, you know, cafeteria plans, qualified retirement plans. A lot of self funded will offer benefit plans, which is obviously what you guys are. So that's sort of my practice. How it started to develop? When I left, I stayed in town. I've done quite a bit of qualified retirement plan work. Like I said, self funded plans, self funded arenas changed a little bit over the last 30 years, but I still get some smattering of that. And I've done work for some public sector as well. And Scott and Dan can address that if they want to know if you guys want to know how I operate. Great. I typically and I was thinking of Scott, when I was looking at this in terms of what I do 'cause. But Gallagher does is for the most I've not looked at their contracts specifically, but typically Gallagher does whatever you ask him to do. And sometimes you don't know exactly what you need until you ask. And then they will help you with it and there may not be a part of their contract per SE, but they'll take care of it for you. So your general legal counsel is a little bit like that in terms of what what the role is, it's it's general legal counsel sometimes. It's very specific. Sometimes it's very generic. I promise you right now I don't know all the answers all the time. I guarantee you that anybody that says they're an expert, I can't say they're lying, but they're they're more comfortable with their position than they should be. But I do try to get the right answer to you and if I give you a wrong answer at a meeting, I always double check it and I will get back to you. Typically the board as soon as possible saying look, here's what I thought we should do. I think I'm wrong. We'll fix it. Not that it happens very often, but it has happened. And I've had to call the board chair and say no, your bylaws, I couldn't believe they had that in the bylaws, but they actually did. So we had to change a couple things. I did go through some of your minutes. I've Eli. I was laughing when you were talking about financing and the Department of Insurance and all the things listed in some of the Minutes from last year through what was going on and certainly I'm here to help out any way I can if I'm selected as your general Coun. With responding to the DOI. And the end of the March. That's interesting. And by the end of March. You gotta have your report in for last year if I remember correctly, and that's always I know with that's a little bit of a bugaboo with some of the self funded plans just because the timing and the audit and the actual the IBNRS and. All those reports that have to be put together before you can submit all that to the DOI so. What else? I am a certified public accountant. I'm an accredited pension administrator. All that means is that I have no life because I've done taken all these exams and passed, you know, become accredited at various items. I laugh because I am an accredited pension administrator, but she means I could do administration of a qualified retirement plan. But I don't do it because I don't find it enjoyable. I love the code part of it and understand of course you guys aren't subject to ERISA, but that is typically kind of the driving force in the qualified retirement Plan arena, even in the self funded arena. If you happen to be for the private sector versus the public. Sector. Oh, let's see. As of right now I am. I'm I'm probably the tax guy for Gravis is relatively large, firm 50 lawyers over roughly 20 states. The gentleman I put on our proposal includes Michael Pogue, who's actually lives in Sun Valley. He's had a lot of experience dealing with public entities. That's kind of why he's my second in command. Because if there's some obviously opening open meeting rules or whatever might be happening, he's had to deal with those. From a. A non public sector. Representing somebody in front of the public sector. So and then. Then Chris is on there just because Chris is in L3 at Gonzaga. Super smart young man. He's like I said, I'm almost 72. I'm in this business for awhile, but. Alexander Freitag 19:39 There. Allan Bosch 19:39 Mack Trucks can always happen. That's why I want somebody that's young, smart, willing to learn a very unique area of the law. So I put him in the list as well. Just so you know, I've thought about succession plan. As we go forward. So I don't just quit. And also you guys have left with no there's so much institutional knowledge that comes with this practice. I know and Scott can address this. When I got work for another one of his organizations that it takes about a year, year and a half. I think for general counsel to really get a good feel for what's going on and where, you know, some agencies I've worked. For are really well greased. They just take care of things and others if they're relatively new like you guys have started in 2019, somewhere in there relatively new. So that's always a there's a learning curve and a growth curve. When I started reading the stuff about, you know, the your reserves were negative and all that. I'm going. Yeah, boy, that sounds about right. 'cause you get kind of comfortable and all of a sudden you realize. Your projections aren't working now. That's not a legal issue other than dealing with the DOI and having your surplus having a not having. An adequate surplus but. It comes up and so that's and sometimes my advice won't even be legal. Just be I'll ask questions sometimes for the the other advisors that really isn't a legal question. I just want to understand from a from a practical standpoint how we're operating and that I know that the agency that you guys are in, in good shape in terms of administratively as well as financially and if there's something I see that I think you ought to consid. I will raise it. With that, I'll open it up. If anybody has any questions. Bill Nary 21:16 You know, I'll, I'll start. Alan I. I. I don't have a lot of questions. I think I think we probably will have. Some questions. I think there's some things that we've kind of kept on our back burner since we haven't had general counsel on board for a few months now, just things that probably need to get addressed that probably are more appropriate to to ask Council once we have some. On board, nothing real urgent. I think part of the maybe the as we transition. With the board over time, probably only thing that's a little, I don't know if it's unique, but I know we don't have a lot of public entity trusts out there. And so the public entity rules and open meeting requirements like you just mentioned are things that may get asked of you or your firm occasionally. Like what do we need to do for this situation or that situation regarding those? I think the other one that probably is not unique to public entities. But it feels unique to us because of, you know, there's a always a conversation between the board, the trustees. Gallagher and Blue Cross and the City Council, and how the whole process works and and you kind of hit on the head, you know, this trust is fairly new and some of our Council members have been on the Council since before we had trust. Now that we do. Some are very comfortable with it because that's all they've known. Some are not as comfortable with it because there is not what they've always known, and there's still a lot of conversation each year, which may or may not involve you or or your firm, but we'll probably be looking to say how would we answer this better? How would? We make them understand what we're doing or how this is working and how this works in relation to how the marketplace works or how other things work out there in the world or compared to what we used to do in Hawaii. We do it this way versus the. Other way. So I think those are kind, should that may come over time. And then when I say over time, I mean within the next three months, four months. So I think those are things as we go through our budgeting process for the city. Allan Bosch 23:25 OK. Bill Nary 23:29 I think that's probably going to come up. We've been asked to do periodic quarterly updates to the Council, so they don't kind of where we are financially. There's still an apprehension by some council members that this is the best way to do medical benefits. Whether or not we should look at either another way of doing it or remarketing the plan to see if there's a more, you know, financially affordable way to do things, you know, so I think there will be a lot of conversation that way. Allan Bosch 24:03 OK. Bill Nary 24:06 Any other questions from the board members or anybody else on? Process or what you're interested in? What Alan can bring to the table or his firm? Allan Bosch 24:17 Yeah, I'd say I have one comment, Bill. Before you were talking, Mr. Chairman, you're talking about in terms of your trustees and I've I've talked about this before with other groups. Bill Nary 24:19 Yep. Allan Bosch 24:25 You know, when the qualified retirement Plan arena. If I'm a trustee, my my sole objective is to provide benefits based on the terms of the plan for the participants of the plan and what's in their best interest. You have an additional issue and that is you have your. Members and your and everybody that participates in the plan you're trying to design. Come up with a plan design that works for your your group. Group. You've also got the City Council that your funding mechanism and they have certain objectives that you have to address. 'cause you're the trustees, you're managing their money, so to speak, for the benefit of the employees of the participants. So you've got you're competing and the public in the private sector, the employer, other than funding it really can't make once the plans designed, they got to live with it. But you've got another group that can say, hey, we want this change. Or what are you doing? If our money, so to speak? We've got a little bit more tugs from a fiduciary standpoint than, say your typical private sector organization. Bill Nary 25:26 Sold. Yes, you are correct Sir. That is, that is exactly the concerns that we've had to address is trying to understand how to get the Council to understand and and also and the other thing that we've had a conversation with the Council about is it isn't it isn't merely a a very straight line. Right. You look and say, well, if you want to provide this level of programming, it costs X. And City Council, if you want to provide. 90% of that X great and the other ten can come from the members. That's that's easy. That's a business decision, right? But we also have to look at it as an entity because it is a benefit program as an entity of of, of government that we are. We're also competing with other levels of government around our community. So then it's like, well, we can't charge our members 10% of the total cost because that makes us less competitive in the marketplace. So now we are challenged that way. So Council, we need 93% instead of 90% and then that's another conversation. So I'm sure the private sector has that too, but it definitely feels like we aren't always just looking at cost versus return. We're also looking at competition and everything else in the marketplace and what we want to charge employees and. So there is a lot of discussion there on on all of those fronts. Allan Bosch 26:59 Yep. Reba White 27:03 So this question probably was asked by Christina or Alex, but just for our knowledge, what type of communication style do you have in your response time? Allan Bosch 27:16 Well, for them it depends. I mean, I obviously normally if I get an e-mail, I try to get back to you within 24 hours or if you call me, I'll try to respond right then if I don't have the immediate answer, I'll get back to you. Normally I don't. Well, sometimes I'll. I'll traffic may go through the chairman to me or maybe the employee benefits group at the city and they may ask some questions that like like yourself read. But you may ask some questions that will come to me. And once you have your your contact person, then that's usually how most of my questions will come from one person rather than multiple people. Having said that though, I know a couple of my groups. It was I deal very rarely with the actual chairman. It's always going to be a trustee that's involved at the employer level dealing with things that will have more direct contact with our scheduling person will come to me more often, say than somebody else. But I really take it from everybody. And normally I like to do. To a training session. This is a little bit off topic, but with all the trustees to understand their fiduciary roles, because the fact that you're on the the as a board member, you've got responsibilities. We just talked about both to the Members as well as to the city. And how that all fits and what's my role? What is my responsibility in terms of decision making and reviewing information and and all that? So a lot of times board members can certainly call me if they want to and ask me about something. But that normally should go through channels, so to speak, either through the chair or through some particular point person on the board. And I do. Bill Nary 28:53 How do you? Allan Bosch 28:54 I have some being on vacation. I usually try to get to everybody as soon as I can. Reba White 29:01 Thank you. Bill Nary 29:03 I'll ask one other question. It's probably pretty detailed and it's something we can have a longer discussion about, but I know one of the issues we had previously is concerns about billing and what things are getting billed and a conversation about the billing. And how do you handle that? Allen, I mean, if we have a discussion that we think you know, is this going to get billed for? This is not going to get billed if we get billed for it and we're like, I don't understand why this is a. Charge, I mean is, is those things feelies fair to have a conversation about or how do you how do you handle that? Allan Bosch 29:39 Yeah, absolutely. So because of the billing rate that we quoted in here, so my normal rates four and a quarter, not 300, but you know I I sit at a board meeting, I'm gonna charge you for the time I sit at that board meeting. Bill Nary 29:52 Sure. Allan Bosch 29:52 If somebody calls me, my rule of thumb is if it's just a quick question, I'm probably not gonna charge you. Somebody calls me a 5 minute answer done, but if I say I've got to get back to you, then the meter's gonna start running at the rate and you can expect that. So it and it varies. One of the things that's very typical. Is that you may have a certain budget level for the year. So whatever my fees are has to be within those constraints and if it exceeds that, we have to go back to the board to get approval. So I've never run up against those those maximums. My other clients, but it can happen. I just. I've never seen it happen because typically. I'll go to the board meetings. I'll charge you for that. If if something comes up, like if we have to redo the bylaws, I'm gonna charge you an hourly rate for that. If you want to know what a particular project is gonna cost, I'll give you a range. What I think it's gonna cost from X to Y, it'll be within that range, and if something happens where it goes beyond that. Y number. I'll just contact obviously the board chair, somebody saying, look, I told you X, but this is gonna take a lot longer because of this reason. And then of course you can decide whether you gonna wanna approve that or not. But normally I like having like an annual budget. Then I know what my constraints are and I can take care of you as as I see fit. Bill Nary 31:10 And I think that also is really fair. I mean, just to be honest, we, we, our prior Council never attended any board meeting and mostly because I don't know that we felt if he didn't ever feel like there was a need to that he communicated to us in order, we feel it was necessary. I Don. Know that I'll always be the case, but I'm not sure the you know from a cost standpoint, you know, taking your time for 1/2 hour to an hour for a board meeting is maybe that. Beneficial to everyone, and maybe it initially I don't. We could talk about that as group and decide what makes sense for you and for the boy. Allan Bosch 31:42 Yeah, yeah, it. Yeah, it's a trade off. I know a couple of times where it was funny 'cause I I was attending a board meeting and I really thought it was gonna be a pretty straightforward board meeting. So I'm just sitting there listening and all of a sudden something came up and I went wait a. Minute. So I I basically brought this to the attention of the board, saying I don't think we can do what you guys are proposing. I just don't think it's permissible, and so all of a sudden I was there and I'm glad I was there because it kept us from violating some rules. And it also from a fiduciary standpoint. Think I put the entire board at risk. It probably would have turned into nothing, could have been passed. It wouldn't have been a big deal, but I do like I tend to be kind of sticklers about making sure we follow Robert's rules of orders or something close to it. And if I see something that's not following those rules, I might. I may not raise it immediately, but I will raise it later to the board chair saying I think we need to change procedurally how we handle these matters in terms of voting process, whatever it might be. Bill Nary 32:32 Hello. Allan Bosch 32:40 But you're right, I'm here based on what you think I'm needed for. If you don't need me for every board meeting, I'm good with that. If you want me for certain board meetings, I'm good with that. Bill Nary 32:47 OK. Allan Bosch 32:49 If you've got like an annual like a strategic planning meeting that could take you know, 4 hours to a day, depending on what you're up to. I think that I should be at that meeting cause a lot of things can come up that I may need to address. Bill Nary 32:58 Sure. Allan Bosch 33:03 As general counsel. But part of it I may need, if we'll go with it to the financial planning part of it, I don't really need to be. Bill Nary 33:05 Sure. Allan Bosch 33:10 There for that. I mean, Gallagher and and those people give do a pretty good job of giving you some ideas of what to do and what it's gonna cost and all those, you know, those budgeting processes. Bill Nary 33:22 Yes. All right. Any other questions for Allen? Oh. Scott Howell 33:26 Yeah. Just just on this point. In our working relationship with other clients that we've shared, Alan's participation in the board meetings has has been a positive. I mean, he mentioned before that. There will be legal situations that come up, but also just, you know, having another professional perspective in the room on different issues that that we talk about has been valuable. I wasn't in the middle of their arrangement, so. I don't know if he was there on a retainer, if he was there on an hourly rate, but. I'm sure you can work work something fair out there, but. Participation at least some board meetings has been has been pretty valuable. Christena Barney 34:14 I would say based on the direction of the DOI audit thus far, I would be more inclined to have Alan participate in each meeting just for that reason. I think we're probably gonna get asked to do so by DOI in some way or another. Bill Nary 34:14 Thank you, Scott. Good to know. Yep. Yeah. And I think it's just a thing from the board. We just need to. We really haven't had a budget for that type of thing before. We haven't really planned for that as part of our overall cost of the program. So I think it's just something we'll have to determine that as part of our cost of of running a program of of this type of work. You know it has to get paid for. So I think that's fair. All right. Anything else? Sean, you're not waving to talk. You're waving at somebody. Shawn Harper 35:13 Yep, somebody is sticking their head in my window. Bill Nary 35:13 OK. No worries, OK. Just want to make sure I didn't miss you. So all right, so our next item we have an. Christena Barney 35:21 I just want to say real quick. Thank you, Allen, for putting your proposal together. I really appreciate it was very well done, very detailed and thank you for your time today. Bill Nary 35:28 Yes, thank you. Allan Bosch 35:31 I'd like to take credit for it, but I had we had staff people that put it together for me so and they did a great job. Bill Nary 35:37 Alan, we appreciate it very much. And and we we do appreciate the time and effort it takes in the interest to want to do this. Christena Barney 35:37 Fair enough. Allan Bosch 35:38 I thought they did an awesome job. Alexander Freitag 35:39 Wow. Bill Nary 35:45 So we appreciate that. And as Christina just mentioned, we definitely are going to probably rely a little more on on trust counsel going forward as needed more than we have. So I think that's a good thing, so. Allan Bosch 35:57 Sounds good. All right. Thank you very much everybody. Christena Barney 36:00 Thank you. Bill Nary 36:01 Thank you. Alexander Freitag 36:01 Thank you. Allan Bosch 36:03 Now how do I get out of here? Let's see. Bill Nary 36:07 Figured it out. Alright. Do we have any bills to pay? I don't think we did, Reba. I think we're. I think we're caught up on any of that at the moment. Reba White 36:15 Yep, you're correct. We don't have any. Bill Nary 36:18 OK, Blue Cross updates. Daniel Malloy 36:22 Have one I sent over an authorization form to Reba on the stop loss so Blue Cross of Idaho. Starting as of 1/1 of 27 is no longer going to write our own stop loss. We are going to use a vendor BCS which is a national stop loss carrier. And is the carrier for multiple other Blues plans. We're doing this because it will help us to disperse the risk we have seen over the last five years. Are loss ratios were very high because we've got such a small pool of people, we only have our groups here in Idaho. So going with BCS will help us to disperse that risk. We'll offer some additional options as we quote stop loss. So for instance, right now we don't do lasers. So let's say we know that there's a member that's going to have $700,000 of claims for the year projected. We can. With the new carrier come in and say, well, instead of your deductible being 200,000, it might be 400,000 on that member for that, we're going to reduce the premiums if the member never reaches the 400,000, that's fine. But it gives us some alternatives to be able to keep those premiums down on the stop loss and with dispersing the risk. It also helps us to make sure that we're competitive in the marketplace. So the release that I sent was for us to be able to release claims. And demographic information to BCS in order for them to underwrite the renewal for one one of 27. And for the for the trust, you will see no difference, and we'll only talk about this one time. It it's still immediate stop loss credit so you get credit for any claims over the stop loss point. Immediately, still, everything really will still run through Blue Cross of Idaho. It still runs through us, so you will not see anything after this. This is just a change that we felt needed to be made and that will benefit our our group's. Immensely. Bill Nary 38:35 And this doesn't change our current stop loss. This is just a a different tool, basically a different vendor for you guys to use for that. Daniel Malloy 38:44 Correct. We wrote everything in house, so everything on our stop loss side we did in house. Now we're not going to do that. We're going to use a stop loss vendor in order to be able to write that coverage. Reba White 38:56 Yeah. So. Christena Barney 38:57 I don't. Sorry, by signing this this is just releasing information. It's not. Requiring us to participate necessarily in anything, we still have the ability to change we want. Daniel Malloy 39:09 Absolutely, absolutely. This is just in order to be able to generate the renewal and for us to be able to release the records for them to generate that. Bill Nary 39:11 OK. Christena Barney 39:17 Perfect. Thank you. Scott Howell 39:19 Dan, do you know if I mean talked about the the option to laser? Do you know if they will ever force a laser, or will that just be an option that's on the table to for the group to decide? Daniel Malloy 39:31 It. They believe in lasers, which most stop loss carriers do. It can be a discussion. I. I don't know. We're so fresh into the relationship with them. If we're going to have that alternative to say we'll take the higher premium, we don't want the laser in there. I've not had any lasers yet on the the one group that I had move one one of 26. But that will have to be a bigger discussion once we get down the road a little bit with them. Scott Howell 39:58 Yeah. OK. And just for the board's information, Gallagher has, we have really strict rules on the stop loss carriers that that we work with. Just, you know, from a compliance and best practices perspective, lasers is one of the the issues that we. We just want to be very upfront with with the carries that we work with most of them. Lasers are super common at new with new business so that they're not taking unknown risk when they're first taking on a client. But we we really don't like to see lasers forced at renewal. We're fine if it's an option and we can all talk about it, but carriers that. That force lasers at renewal are usually not on our our list to work with, so hopefully we see that as a collaborative process with BCS. Daniel Malloy 41:04 Yeah, I believe so, Scott. Bill Nary 41:05 So. Daniel Malloy 41:06 I don't think we're going to have an issue with it. I just don't have the experience with it to be able to to give a definitive answer. Scott Howell 41:10 Yeah. Yeah, no, I get that. It's all new. Bill Nary 41:14 And I I may be the only person, but I don't know what any of that means. What is that? What? What are you talking about? Scott Howell 41:18 So laser is what Dan mentioned. Where if there's a an ongoing large claimant, a laser is when the stop loss carrier assigns that claimant a higher deductible on the stop loss than the rest of your population. Bill Nary 41:22 Yeah. Scott Howell 41:34 It's a way for them to avoid known risk. And for you to avoid. Usually, if a carrier has known risk, they're gonna add that to your premium. Bill Nary 41:45 Right. Scott Howell 41:46 And the laser allows them to not add it to the premium. But it adds claims cost to you if if that individual's deductible is higher. Bill Nary 41:53 Correct. Scott Howell 41:55 So we we just like it to be a conversation to say hey. Bill Nary 41:56 OK. Scott Howell 42:01 This is going to need to get paid for. How do we want to pay for it? Alexander Freitag 42:08 I'm glad. Christena Barney 42:08 Switch the renewals so that you don't have one or two individuals driving up that stop loss cost. You can mitigate those those increases. Scott Howell 42:17 Yep. Bill Nary 42:18 Sure. Well, and I think like Scott said, I think that's the conversation, right, 'cause obviously the plan's gonna still have the increased cost, but now where's the cost going to get absorbed from if it isn't from the premiums or the all the members? Daniel Malloy 42:19 Yes. Christena Barney 42:35 Well, and that's a one time claims cost as opposed to an ongoing increase stop loss renewal. Bill Nary 42:35 Right. Sure. No. And I think that's the conversation. I mean right at the end of the day, the conversation still be where's the money coming from? Scott Howell 42:47 Right. Yep. And it's. Christena Barney 42:47 Yeah. Bill Nary 42:48 Right. We just talked about our we're only a a few $100,000 over our required minimum of what we're supposed to have. So I get it. I didn't. I didn't hear. I didn't understand the term laser. I didn't know where that came from, so I understood the the concept, but I didn't understand the term so. Scott Howell 43:07 Yep, that's it. Daniel Malloy 43:07 Yeah, and it it's probably because Blue Cross of Idaho, we've never had them. Bill Nary 43:12 Right. Daniel Malloy 43:12 So we would have never talked about them, but in the market, in other states, it is something that exists in order to be able to fray risk and it does not mean that you're going to pay 700,000. It means whatever claims are incurred there would be a limit and then you would just pay those claims that are associated with that member up to the limit. If they reach it. Bill Nary 43:24 Sure. Alexander Freitag 43:35 Don't feel bad, Bill. Bill Nary 43:36 I guess if when we ever have that conversation, we're gonna be looking at, you know, what would that have meant? If we'd have done that? Alexander Freitag 43:36 I didn't know what it was either so. Bill Nary 43:42 You know, in the last year would that how would that have affected us, right, so. Reba White 43:50 I just. I just wanted that to be brought up 'cause per DOI talking about any contracts or signatures needed. Bill Nary 43:51 OK. Yeah, I'll go ahead. Reba White 43:58 That's why I asked Dan to talk about it in our board meeting. So I will get that signed in and get it over to you so that we can do that. Daniel Malloy 44:05 OK. Bill Nary 44:05 Well, do we need the board at least to take action to approve doing that? I guess we probably should have a motion and a vote to approve that. That approval of that transfer of data, the authorization. Reba White 44:17 Authorization. Christena Barney 44:21 I'll make a motion to approve signature on the form. Eli Daniel 44:24 2nd. Bill Nary 44:24 OK. OK. We'll move to the second to approve the authorization for the Stop loss for Blue Crosses requesting for a third party vendor. All those in favor say aye. Aye, aye. OK. Christena Barney 44:38 Hi. Bill Nary 44:40 We'll get that signed and over there. Gallagher's there updates from Scott. Scott Howell 44:51 From us right now just working on. Some of the claim management solutions that we talked about with the committee. Bill Nary 45:04 And my last item I put on there is an executive session. If it was necessary to discuss the legal counsel position and whether or not the board wants to take some action move forward. Do you want to have that discussion? We can have it in the next session rather than on the public meeting if we wish. We don't have to have it on the in the exact session. If you don't, we can have a special meeting. So what's the preference of the board? Christena Barney 45:36 I'm comfortable just having the discussion, but I'm open to what everyone else feels. Alexander Freitag 45:42 OK, as am I. Eli Daniel 45:44 Thanks. Bill Nary 45:45 Yeah, I I don't have a concern either way. So like I said, I put it on there as it is. If we can do it that way, if we wish, we don't have to do it. And if I didn't know if we were ready to move forward with Allen or we wanted further discussion or something else, I don't didn't know, so. Christena Barney 46:02 I I'll tell the board. So the other person that we had responds the proposal that they provided was not nearly as in-depth as Alan's. It was a one page resume essentially, or a bio. And so Alex and I were both very impressed with Allen and that's why we decided to move him forward. I don't have any concerns with with having him be our legal counsel, but I'm again open to what the the board feels. Alexander Freitag 46:33 Yeah, I'll agree with Christina completely. The decision was very easy for the two of us. When we looked at both. And yeah, Alan was by far, far more articulate and much more detail in the information, a lot of experience. So certainly no concerns on my end moving him forward. Eli Daniel 46:50 It was reflected in his presentation. Bill Nary 46:56 Yeah, I I don't have any concerns. I think his experience is really valuable that as this as this trust keeps moving forward, I think that's going to be really helpful. They've got depth. I mean, like he said, he's already planning from a transitional standpoint to be able to do that. So I mean, I don't really see that again. I think again, I think it's a different conversation for a different day, but I do think we're going to spend more money in this arena. In the future than we have been, which is. Fine. We just need to plan for that and consider that into the cost of the program and. And having that that that's just a part of cost of doing business, no different than having an accountant and having other parts of this and we just have to figure out that from a budgetary standpoint. But I think it's I think it's invaluable from a long term. Christena Barney 47:51 We know at this point he's gonna need to update and review our bylaws based on DOI. Bill Nary 47:57 Hmm. Christena Barney 48:00 There are at least two contracts he's gonna have to review, so there's there's a lot of work just right out the gate that needs to be completed so. Bill Nary 48:07 Yep. Yeah, I've been kind of keeping open some issues that just have popped up in the last four or five months that are just questions mostly for ongoing. But yeah, I definitely see that as a conversation. So yeah, I do think it's probably valuable that we get to move in and real lawyers cost money. I mean, obviously we're getting a a decent rate $300. For those who don't deal with lawyers very much, that's a pretty decent rate, trust me. And even 425, what you said is regular rate is that's pretty decent. Right, too good. Go to the marketplace out there so. Lawyers ain't cheap. The only cheap lawyers are working right here. That's it. That's the only chief lawyers you're ever gonna get. So. Christena Barney 48:55 Do we need a motion or anything Bill to move forward with getting a contract? Bill Nary 48:58 I I think we do. If the desire is to engage next with Allen, to engage with a, get a contract in place and a engagement letter with him, I think we do need a board approval to do that and then we can bring that back for approval at. The next board meeting. Christena Barney 49:13 OK. Eli Daniel 49:18 I'd be happy to make a motion to do just that. Bill Nary 49:19 Oh. OK. Alexander Freitag 49:24 Yeah, I'll, I'll second that. Christena Barney 49:25 OK. Bill Nary 49:27 Alright, so moved a second there to move forward with further discussion with Allan Bosch and his firm to bring forward a letter of engagement and agreement with them to be general counsel for him and for their firm to be general counsel for the Trust. All those in favor? Say aye. Alexander Freitag 49:46 Aye. Bill Nary 49:46 Alright, alright. Christina or Alex, do you guys wanna reach out to him? Do you want me to? I don't care. I'm happy to call him and at least get the that that written part finalized and I can bring that back to the board. Is that OK? Christena Barney 50:06 Yeah, that's fine. I have a a statement of work that I had sent to him originally. I think we probably need to send that back over to him, so I'll get that to you when I'm back in the office, bill. Bill Nary 50:11 OK. Yes, OK, that sounds great. I'll. I'll give him a call today and just let her know. We would like to select him and we'll work on an agreement and I'm assuming he has the standard form, maybe even that he can provide us what he's done previously. Sleep. Christena Barney 50:28 Likely, yeah. Bill Nary 50:30 Yep, OK. We're down to next meeting topics. Anything else for the good of the group? OK. Well, we just see the most to adjourn. Christena Barney 50:43 Thank you. Make a motion to adjourn. Bill Nary 50:50 Move to adjourn. All those in favor say aye, aye. Hi. Hi. We are adjourned at 11:52. Christena Barney 50:53 Aye. Shawn Harper 50:54 Aye. Bill Nary 50:59 Thank you. Enjoy the rest of your spring break, Christina. Christena Barney 51:01 Thank you. I'll get you minutes when I'm back in the office. Bill Nary 51:04 Awesome. Thank you so much. Scott Howell 51:05 See you guys. We'll see you. Daniel Malloy 51:06 See ya. Alexander Freitag 51:06 Bye. Christena Barney 51:07 Bye. Bill Nary stopped transcription