Health insurance costs bite into public budgets

Skyrocketing costs of health insurance are diminishing Whitman County’s public agencies’ abilties to perform their services.

Cities, counties, schools and hospitals are seeing greater percentages of their budgets go toward making sure their employees have medical insurance.

Perhaps the most significant impact of insurance costs falls on the area’s school districts.

Schools are bound by state standards to contribute $768 per month to the health insurance plans of their employees.

For the 69 full-time employees at the Colfax School District, that means $53,073 per month, according to Business Manager Reece Jenkin.

That amounts to an annual total of $636,881 on insurance, more than ten percent of the school’s $6.2 million budget this year.

Jenkin said about 80 to 85 percent of the school’s costs are for staff salaries and benefits.

He added with the combination of increased insurance costs and the state denying raises for teachers the past two years, many employees of the school district have seen their actual take home pay decline.

Whitman County is slated to pay just shy of $1.8 million for employee health insurance coverage this year. Cost of contibuting to the insurance coverage of employees represents three percent of the county’s $54 million total budget.

However, insurance costs have a decidedly larger impact in the county’s operating fund. Employees paid from that fund will receive more than $1.2 million in medical benefits this year, almost ten percent of the $12.9 million operating budget.

County Commissioner Michael Largent said that has a big impact when setting the county’s budget.

“It’s huge. How do you fight that?” he said. “The worst part is, a lot of employees will be losing money because their insurance has gone up for next year.”

Insurance costs may leave no place else for cuts in the tightening budget than to reduce county services, he added.

The county’s contribution to insurance plans varies for the different bargaining units represented on county payrolls.

Non-union employees, which total 84 including elected officials, receive $670 from the county toward their health plans each month. The county’s 16 jailers get $715 for medical insurance.

Union employees in the courthouse, road and solid waste departments receive $653 per month under the existing contracts. Those employees, who are represented by the Teamsters Union, which has not yet been able to agree with county commissioners on a collective contract for this year.

Kelli Campbell, human resources director, said the county’s contribution for this year could change for those employees if such a change is negotiated in the contract.

The county picks up the entire cost of insuring deputies and most of the cost of insuring their families.

The city of Colfax spent $23,484 for employee insurance coverage in September.

That cost is divided out across a number of funds within the city’s budget, said Administrator Carl Thompson, but it takes a significant chunk out of the city’s $1.2 million operating fund.

At Whitman Hospital and Medical Center, medical benefits amount to a portion of the overall expenses, but are beginning to take a bigger bite out of the budget.

“It’s a large expense. But in terms of our overall expenses, it’s not that big,” said Hospital Chief Financial Officer Jim Heilsberg.

The hospital has some 220 employees, 129 of which are full time and receive $554 per month for their insurance.

CEO David Womack said the hospital runs its own insurance pool through Group Health. Rates under that plan rose this year as claims went up last year.

“Medical employees as a whole use health care more than the average person,” Womack pointed out.

Partly because of increases in premiums and deductibles under the hospital’s coverage plan, many other full time employees choose not to take the hospital’s insurance plan, according to Linda Legerwood, human resources director.