That's the last um item in that part of the packet, and that's the EMS totals, and I just want to uh provide uh uh um compliments to our AMS staff and Chief Politley and the group there.

Um you'll notice in March 2026, that number was two 220 uh that exceeds um the uh total uh the total about 30,000 dollars of the next highest number that we had for that uh uh period.

So uh it was a significant accomplishment for him and his team, and it goes to show what the commission has approved as it relates to staffing and the equipment that they have that they're taking that uh those resources and utilizing them as they should be because those numbers continue to bump up.

Okay.

Is there a motion?

Okay, motion by Commissioner Strode.

Is there a second?

Second, second by Commissioner Chanel.

Any further discussion?

All in favor, ah, aye, any opposed by like sign?

Motion carries item four informational items.

Once again, info only on item F.

I do want to correct uh Rocky Atkins's A D K-I-N S.

And that's it.

All right, let's move to item five work session, employee health insurance update and renewal.

And I believe Mr.

Jeff Trude is here with us today from the BM group, and we look forward to hearing from you as always, Jeff.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It's all yours.

Thank you.

So thank you, sir.

Here are happening again.

Never so good to see everyone.

Um again, my name is Jeff Truitt, uh senior benefit advisor uh with BIM group.

Uh fortunate um privilege of working with the city for a few years now.

Um kind of get a better feel of how the plan has been moving.

Um has been a good working relationship in regards to trying to understand budget, um employees needs um and things along those lines.

So I want to kind of start at kind of the end of the movie first uh and kind of go over kind of the numbers and then I can kind of go through some reports and talk to you around why the numbers are where they are and uh why we feel that way.

So health insurance is obviously the the biggest piece of the puzzle puzzle when it comes to a benefit, but then also when it comes to a budget.

Uh so this year uh the budget increase uh is 4.3 percent um with no benefit uh plan design changes uh at all.

I do want to point out that we have seen some growth in the number of employees that are covered under the plan.

So we now have 164 employees, uh, and a lot of those are covering their dependents.

So there are 394 covered lives under the program.

So almost 400 people uh are benefiting from the program that the city offers.

Um very good news with our other benefits as well.

Uh the dental, um there's no uh change there in the plan design or the rates, the vision.

Uh we have been working on an analysis um for a few months now in regards to um the vision coverage was actually embedded in the medical plan.

And we used to see more of those in years past, but we decided to kind of break it out a little bit and look at um what the benefit is, what the cost is, and is there something better?

So the benefit is a 150 basically an allowance, and while that is nice, um the employees don't have the advantage of of using a network.

So that 150 is full retail.

They can't get very much for that.

Um so we looked at what the cost that is run through the benefit plan uh was over the past few years and looked at that average.

Could we take that same money, go out and purchase an actual insurance contract and you know give that to the employees uh just so we're not taking something away.

Um so we've done that.

We've been able to uh look and go to an RFP um, look to a carrier that's using the VSP network.

So they're not paying full retail, they're getting discounts for that.

They've got co-pays for glasses, lenses, frames, and uh contact lenses.

So we feel that that's going to be an enhancement uh as a vendor benefit and does not cost uh that much more than what they were experiencing before.

So we feel that that'll be a good enhancement going forward for this year, and then we'll communicate that to the employees.

Jeff, what was that percentage increase last year on health?

On the health insurance.

So it was a little higher.

It was it was about nine, maybe even nine and a half.

Um that's good.

It is, and I'll I'll go over on the next slide a little bit of reporting because I want to put that kind of in context back even a few more years because when we don't hit the budget, we're going over the budget, and then we're having to pull out a general, right?

Which we don't know, we don't want to do that.

Um last piece on this page is the the life and disability uh coverages uh are remaining the same uh for the next uh plan year.

All right, this is the um the slide that I was referencing, and it's a nice historical going back over 10 years when we look at uh the number of covered employees, um, what the claims costs were, uh, the fixed cost, and then how the plan has performed in two variables.

One is um the gross number.