The Finance Committee convened to deliberate and vote on two insurance renewal orders for municipal employees (Dental and Life/AD&D) for the 2026 fiscal year. The meeting featured extensive discussion regarding the sustainability of employee benefits, the significant financial weight of insurance on the general fund, and the re-establishment of an Insurance Advisory Committee to oversee future negotiations. While the administration defended the renewals as necessary to maintain network access and provide stability during a transition period, several council members expressed reservations about cost increases and insufficient engagement, with one member expressing a lack of trust in the deal despite acknowledging the complexity of the insurance market.
Good afternoon. Thank you. The Finance Committee meeting will now start. First order of business is going to be talking about the two items that we will be voting on in the special meeting. Are there any questions about the two items? Okay. Order authorizing the mayor to execute a renewable agreement agreement with dental dental concerning the provisions of a fully funded. Insurance. What's it called? Insurance plan for active municipal employees and retirees for the period January 1, 2026 through December 31st, 2026. So moved. Well, you voted out of it. So no, I think that I think you're procedurally correct to do that to vote it out of committee. Okay. All in favor? Taking it out of committee. Oh, I asked. Okay, discussion. I asked. Did you have any discussion? Well, I'll just say I'm really glad that we're going to get a new commission, and hopefully, we'll have uh processes in place so that next year we'll have uh a lot more information very early on, and I think that will be beneficial. Yes, sir. Uh Madam Chair, may I add some information? First of all, uh our insurance benefits citywide, particularly the health insurance, is um a significant weight on your general fund. So our general fund revenues verified are about 105 million. Our health insurance, and I know we're not talking about health today, but this needs to be discussed for the context of the dental uh and the life that you're considering. The health insurance is costing us slightly more than 15 million dollars a year off the general fund. That's a really large number. It comes out to about six thousand dollars per employee for health coverage, and for anyone who takes the plus one or family, the city pays about $18,000 for those of us who take the plus one. So you put those two numbers together, and I know we haven't given raises to employees this year, but a good number of employees are being subsidized to the tune of $24,000 a year by the city of Jackson. Now I know some people would rather have that as pay than insurance, but it's important in a greater uh discussion that our employees understand that they get a lot more than their salary with the health insurance and packages we have. Having said that, there's a real question as to whether we provide the best benefits we can for our employees and whether the current programs are sustainable. Certainly, I don't think any of us want to see us spending 20 million dollars a year uh for coverage. When I came back to the city, I asked early of uh Deborah Whitehead, who's here, somebody I had worked with previously. What was the status of the insurance advisory committee? I was told that that committee had been disbanded. That was one of these committees, and I say this historically, not to um beat a dead horse, but there are certain things that occurred regardless of whether you had Danks, Ditto, Melton, or Johnson as mayor. And those are the four administrations I'm largely familiar with. The insurance advisory committee was one of those, and so that committee would come uh together, evaluate things and make recommendations to the city council and the administration. Uh I went back to Mayor Horn, asked him to re-implement that committee. He has re-implemented that, and we will be working um to secure the new agent of record uh in 2026 to re-evaluate our health insurance because our contract is up at the end of 2026 on health insurance, and we will also take another look at dental and life insurance. Now, circling back to where we are now on the dental insurance. Um, Deborah Whitehead negotiated directly on behalf of the city. There is about a $2 per pay period increase for the dental coverage. Uh, there was an alternative dental coverage that would not have been an increase to the employee, but at the same time would have um cut the network dramatically by over half. And so uh our collective wisdom, uh, Ms. Whitehead, myself, HR collectively thought it was better to continue offering the same plan where uh people who are using this delta dental insurance and already have relationship with the dentist will know that that insurance will continue to cover. I won't say that'll be the recommendation next year, but that's the recommendation for this year. Expect from this insurance advisory committee before our next budget, a series of recommendations on health, life, and dental for all of you to consider as we go through the budget next year. And our goal internally is to have those recommendations to you mid-year, not on the budget deadline.