 I mean, the email I got back from the table, we're going to do a call about it, a call about it. We asked them. They said a five-year offer. So they were even going to do it? According to his text, right? Okay. Because we hadn't heard a thing about it, so it was funny that now all of a sudden they've been coming in and pushing me wrong. It's a real priority, but I want to make sure I got it right and stuff. It's the county that's not willing to give us any money. Yeah, I'm going to be there. Okay. Let's just say hi. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. We haven't started yet, but we're going to put you on mute and we should be getting started in just a few minutes. Okay, that'll work. Thank you. Hmm? I don't know. He's supposed to. He's supposed to. That's right. Thank you. Okay. Hello. We were at Spell correctly. You got it right. I got it right. You're Mr. Tan. Yes. Yes. You know how to. Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. Oh, we got it. We got it. Oh, yeah. Go ahead and read out on it so they can add it. We'll just add it when it goes into. Can I add it when I go into it? I'm ready. I'm ready. Here. Present. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Can you hear us? Mr. Okay, thank you, Mr. Mayor. We will carry forward our fiscal year 2018 2019 budget discussions. I appreciate the time you all have given me and staff. You know I've called this year of budget discussions a budget of reality and I'm saying that to many of our employees and former employees who are in the room because that's where we are. We are looking very closely and have labored and struggled and talked about some hard decisions and it's time for us to explain those decisions hopefully in a way that our employees, our retirees and the citizens of Columbia can understand because what the city faces is no different than many other public and private entities across the country. Mayor Benjamin knows and his travels as the US president of the Conference of Mayors, sharing some information with me this weekend on the hard decisions that all entities are facing when it comes to health care insurance and coverage for people that have given their service to us for a long time and we don't take that lightly at all. So what we want to start with Mayor Benjamin and I want to be real clear about this. This is a budget workshop. There are no votes made today. This is a time for council to see the recommendations that I put in the city manager's budget because it is the city manager's budget. The decisions recommendations that I'm putting before council are those that I've had to come up with this staff and so this is a presentation period. We've had conversations with council but this is really their first final look at a final budget that's come together. The public hearing for the budget where people can give additional input is on June 5th next Tuesday evening at six o'clock and that's when there would be a first reading on the budget which encompasses these decisions that we have to make regarding retiree health care insurance coverage and for our actives as well. With that we'll get started with the presentation period. The first presentation explains and we want to make sure we're real clear and as we go through it if the mayor and council have questions we'll take those questions during the presentation of the employee and retiree health care program. Ms. Pamela Benjamin, human resources director and chief of staff. I want to remind everyone we have the city manager's conference room is open for folks who may not have seats, some seats in there as well as the chambers are open as well. There's folks showing that they need some place to sit down Go on both faces. Still get it live. Ms. Benjamin, who is of no relation to me I might add. Can you say that again? Of no relation. I'm going to ask that question again. My very best for us dumb boys I can do. We have no relation. I get that question asked of me every day. As Ms. Wilson just stated, I am here to give a presentation on some of the things that we've discussed several meetings that we've had with council. We have been of course having this discussion for quite some time now and we've had some recent presentations one in February one in April and this is a summation of some of that information. We also had some smaller meetings with council as well to really get a sense of what decisions we can make that are going to be viable to maintain some type of benefit and to make sure that we have coverage for our employees as well as retirees and which decisions that we're going to make. So as you all know, health care costs continue to rise every year. As you can see the projections, they've increased every single year. I've just given you some information from 2013, from fiscal year 2013 and 2014 up until 2016-2017 and we're projected at around $25 million for health care costs for this particular fiscal year. So that's kind of the trend. You see that trend is increasing every single year and so every year we do have these discussions about what decisions need to be made in order to maintain health care for our active employees as well as our retirees. So we're here again to have that discussion as well. So in some of our prior presentations, you all have been given some information about what kind of decisions that you need to make. We'll get to it a little bit later in the presentation, but one of the major decisions that need to be made is are we going to maintain our DDB? And the DDB is the defined dollar benefit that was established back in 2014. Yes, in 2014. And what we did was we, a council, voted to set a particular amount of money for each retiree and their dependent in order to try and cap the liability that we had for our OPEB liability. And for those of you who don't know what OPEB is, it's our retiree benefits, includes pension and employee health care or retiree health care. So we've looked at different scenarios. Medical and dental. Medical and dental. Not dental. Not dental. It's medical. It's not dental. It's just medical. It's just medical. So we've looked at, from one extreme to the other, what do we do if we don't maintain our DDB and how does that affect the liability to maintaining it and in what mechanism we provide that defined dollar benefit to our retirees. And so, as we've gone through these discussions over the last couple of months, we've come up with some recommendations that will go on further. You'll see in the slides. So to start some of the changes or some of the proposed recommendations, we're talking about active employee insurance. So currently, we have presented to you as part of Ms. Wilson's budget some ideas about changing employee or active employee health benefits in order to continue to maintain the benefit at a rate that is sustainable for the city of Columbia. So what we are proposing is a phase in increase to premiums. And we have historically not had that typical 80-20 share that we started out back when Daniel was first on council and they kind of recommended some balance to the city contribute 80% and the active employee contribute 20%. We're currently around 88% and 12%. So the recommendation is to move that percentage closer to the 80-20 share. It's looking at about $20 average per month increase in premiums for active employees. We're also looking at increasing some of the deductibles, the out-of-pockets, maximums and the copays, making some changes to that. And also looking at the pharmaceutical tier structure and changing some of the cost for insurance or pharmacy cost. As you all know, we did institute a tobacco surcharge. So we're looking at increasing that from $50 to $100 and also at the concept of a spousal surcharge for spouses who have credible coverage available to them. So in this example or in this situation, if an employee has their spouse covered, their spouse works for an entity that provides health insurance coverage, then in order for that person to remain on the coverage, they'd have to pay an additional surcharge in order to be retained on that employee's coverage. And if the spouse doesn't? If the spouse doesn't, then we would still maintain that benefit for that spouse. And they could pay at the current, whatever the rates are for spousal coverage. Do you have any other questions about that? So those were the things that we were looking at or recommending for the active employees. Is that still roughly 2,000 active employees? Yes. So we're looking at, we've got 2,063 employees that are covered. Some of our employees aren't covered because they may be on tricare or they may have coverage through their spouses, so they're not covered. But that's what we're looking at. We're looking at about 2,600 employees that are active with us. About 2,063 are covered on our plate. So there are roughly 500 people that have alternative health care. Yeah. Like I said, some of them are retired military, so they have tricare. Some of them have coverage from another entity. Some of them are retirees from another place and they're working with us. So they're different scenarios. So depending on what plan you're on, because the city has three different plans. We have a core plan, a buyout plan, and a base plan. So depending on what plan you're on, your deductible varies. For example, I'm trying to find a little presentation. So just to give you an example, if you currently have, you're on the base plan, your deductible is currently $2,000. So with the increases that we're talking about, we were raised that deductible from $2,000 to $2,500. So that's one of the examples. Out-of-pocket maximum would go from 7,000 to 7,150. So there's some slight changes. Depending on what plan you're on, it makes a difference of what your deductibles, your co-pays, and your co-insurances are. Can I answer your question? Yes. Can I go? Sure. Okay. We're having to make such hard decisions to get coverage, and our coverage has always been as robust as it is a great plan. We get that. But at a time like this, we're having to make such hard decisions that affect retirees and athletes and a lot. Everybody, to be more equitable, this is a change that helps them create some savings. Because you're kind of putting the onus on people to make decisions that affect the whole group of people that we're trying to still maintain coverage for. They have the opportunity. They're working. They have the opportunity to get coverage of their own employer versus the expense that is adding to the expense that the city is covering that. When they have another opportunity for coverage. Right. I mean, ultimately we're trying to provide insurance coverage to our active working employees and our retirees. And so it's not, it's pretty typical for employers to charge a surcharge to allow people to stay on the coverage whenever the employee's spouse has coverage that they can get other places. So financially, it is our best interest to make sure we're doing what's in the best interest of our active employees. And so that's one of the things that would allow us to do that and spend those resources on those employees who work for us and those spouses who don't have coverage in other places. We see it a lot where our plan is such a great plan that a lot of people forego the coverage that they have in their current employer to be on our plan. Because our plan is richer. We pay better. Our deductibles are lower. Our premiums are lower than a lot of your other employers. So we see that quite a bit where people are on our plan. But they work every day and they have coverage or they have the access to coverage in their current employer. So that is very common. But it does factor into how we make these tough decisions about who gets covered and who doesn't get covered and how those resources are utilized. We've looked at $100 per month as a surcharge. That's in some of the data that some of our consultants have used as a proposed surcharge. Most of the don't pay for any spouse coverage at all. Certainly there's certainly a range. You know you've got all kinds of employers. But some of your major employers they either don't allow spouses on the coverage or they don't supplement that spouses insurance like we do. So it's pretty common. A lot of your public entities they don't allow spouses on the coverage at all. Ms. Devine when she has questions because of the sound quality she's watching from the stream. And we may have to pause and let her answer her question via text and we lay it. If you have a question for her we just need to give her time. We certainly will give more specific information about each plan and the amounts of the changes. We wanted to let you know that this is a follow up to our previous conversation. And that based on the information we've shared with you all previously that this is the direction we're going towards a recommend for active employee health benefit changes. Any other questions on that? But as far as retiree health insurance is concerned we again like Ms. Wilson has said have constantly looked at this. I've been here seven years. This has been a point of discussion ever since I've been here and I'm sure it will continue to be on because this is a challenge for all employers. We certainly take it very seriously and have considered a lot of the different options out there. But just to give you a little scenario like I said in 2012 I think I said 2014 but actually in 2012 the DDB was established for retirees for the other post employment benefits the liability. And it was about 110 million during fiscal year 2013. So the DDB placed a cap on the city's contribution for pre-65 retirees and is currently at $1,130 per month and $840 per month for dependents. So it's $1,130 per month for the retiree themselves and $840 per month for the dependents. It is $1,130 per month for the retiree and $840 per month for the dependents. What is the current enrollment in the pre-65 retirement? You won't ask me that. I don't have my reading glasses. I have three different numbers that's why I was curious. We're looking at 386 participants. Now when I say that number of course it may vary a little bit based on how many dependents a person has. So we have, for example, we have 24 people that have full family coverage. They may have three people on their plan. They may have four people. They may have five people. They may have 10 people. So I'm looking at the number of plans that we have for those retirees. And all the city covers about 5,000 lives between active and retirees. So I had roughly the number that was given to me by someone, one of these meetings, roughly 402 pre-65 coverage. Does that sound about right? That depends too on when you've got that. Yeah, because it fluctuates. Because people roll off and go to post-65. People come on. So we just use 400 as an average. That might be a safe number. Okay. The DDB for post-65 retirement. Pre-65. Pre-65. So there's a difference between pre-65 and post-65, right? So the DDB for the post-65, and those are Medicare eligible retirees, is $300 for the retiree and $225 for the dependents. So it's $300 for the retiree and $225 for the dependents. So that is the amount of money that the city contributes to set aside for the DDB. Gap coverage, essentially. Right. So what we do for the post-65 is we have a supplemental plan. Mm-hmm. That is offered through UnitedHealthcare. And the post-65 retirees also have to pay a premium for medical and pharmacy, even though we're contributing the DDB currently. Because that's the total cost of the plan. Based on the fact that it's a small population and their experience is pretty high. Then that makes us have to pay around $400 for pharmacy and another almost $400 for medical. So it's pretty expensive for us to offer that supplemental plan. But again, it's a supplemental plan. Medicare is primary. UnitedHealthcare is a supplemental plan for the post-65. So your real cost of supplemental is $700 or $400? $300. $300? Mm-hmm. On top of what the city's already paying. Right. So you're really talking about $700 per person. Right. And the market out there is much less if it's done individually, correct? It absolutely is. According to some of the retirees who've not taken it and gone and done their own, and significantly less per month for supplemental. That is correct. Because we're having to create a program specifically for that. That's why the costs are so high. Exactly. And we do from time to time. We hear from our post-65 retirees who say, I could get a cheaper plan out there on my own. If I just go out to AARP or UnitedHealthcare, I can get much a cheaper plan. And we say, you're absolutely right. Because you may, depending on your personal situation, be able to get a plan that's much cheaper. So that is something that we hear quite often. In FY 18, the city is contributing more than the DDB amount as a result of not increasing retiree premiums and not making any plan changes. So because we haven't increased retiree premiums and we haven't really maintained that DDB, we're here facing some really significant decisions. If the city fails to maintain the DDB going forward, its OPEP liability could go up two to four times higher by fiscal year 2047. And we're looking at a billion dollar liability. So that's why we've looked at some hard decisions. My view or someone's bringing it back home, why 2047 is important and how that affects our budgeting today and you have to hear. And maybe what that billion dollar liability means in terms of our annual contributions and the like. In simple terms, we won't be able to cover our active employees, let alone retirees going into the future if we continue at the pace that we are. And that's just an unheard of liability to bear. You can't do it. Yeah, it's the 30-year window. Of course, we, it's 30 years out and we have had actuarial studies done looking at our current population and all the factors that they look at during the actuarial study as far as age, gender, length of morbidity. There are all these factors that go into how they come up with the actuarial study. But 2047 is 30 years out. So we're looking at how that... And we're required to compute and show those that long-term liability over 30-year horizon. And then we have to set aside funds each year to meet that long-term liability. We have a number that shows us what that looks like. We're talking about a lot of money. We're talking about an inability not just to cover healthcare expenses, but an inability to cover basic services. Let's see if we don't get arms around it. I think that makes sure people understand we're not talking about it. We're not just talking about insurance for retirees or even active employees. We're talking about an inability to meet basic services if we don't get arms around the transfer. Yes, sir. That's you. Okay. So as we've talked through the months, the decision has been made of whether we're going to maintain that DDB or not. Because that's one huge decision. And then if we do, what mechanism is that going to look like? And then it's also been a decision or it needs to be a decision made of who will be eligible for the retiree health insurance benefits going forward after this fiscal year on forward. So when we looked at some possible decisions about what to do, we looked at creating a health reimbursement account based on the current DDB and the amount for the 365 retirees. The HRA would be based on that 1130 or that 840 for those employees who are current, 365 retirees and employees prior to July 1st, 2009, that meet eligibility requirements for retirement. So we looked at how do we cap that population? How do we give some of our longer term employees the benefit of having health insurance when they retire? How do we make sure that we're providing something to those long-term employees and our current retirees? So those were two of the decision points that we're recommending based on Ms. Wilson's budget. We're also looking at the possibility of eliminating post-65 coverage for retirees and that would be eliminating the DDB for that population and they would no longer be receiving that $300 or $225 DDB depending on whether they retiree or dependent. We've also looked at adding an age requirement to be 55 years of age in addition to the requirement for the 20 years of service with the City of Columbia. And that 20 years of service is based on those employees that were here prior to July 1st, 2009. So that's the eligibility requirement for employees that were here prior to July 1st, 2009. After July 1st, 2009, it changed to 25 years for police officers' retirement and 28 years for regular retirees. So that's where that line was drawn. It wasn't an arbitrary line of that, that's where that line was drawn. What we find is our average age for our retirees, our pre-65 retirees, is about 57 years old. So a lot of our pre-65 retirees go on and have other employment and have some of them, a lot of them have the opportunity to get coverage with their current employer. So we were looking at how do we balance between offering coverage to people who don't have the opportunity to have coverage and those employees or those retirees who may have the opportunity to have coverage at other places. Did you look at... Mr. Richmond, I'm sorry. We're getting questions or comments online if you often ask me to get into your microphone or not covering your microphone. So... It was actually online, those were in Tamika. I'm sorry, it was online. So as we look at number two, which in HR account is something we've talked about since we do have money put away and it's a way to feed that and keep it regular. Have you looked at... You have eliminated post-65 coverage for retirees. What is based on the population we have today and can we not put an HRA account together for that to carry those folks who are in the system? I mean, they have a better opportunity to get a better quality healthcare and to be quite honest, it's savings on this side of the fence too because we're overpaying to cover them today and they're not getting a better coverage to create an HRA account for them as well and still be able to maintain our balance because that's what we're looking at at this point. To me, that makes more sense. Right now, the numbers are staggering. These are recommendations. We certainly can tweak and make adjustments to those. We have looked at options because you all know we had those options one through three that were presented. When was that? Was that in April? And one of those options allowed for continuing the DDV for that post-65 group. So that is one of the options that we've presented to you all in the past. We certainly can make that adjustment to this list of recommendations. But we could set it up the same way. We could absolutely set it up the same way. Based on line item two, if you went in, I think I figured out today that's almost about $13,500 per employee, 365 employees. Right, so like you said, the HRA... There's an additional $10,000 if you add a spouse that's other, which is a lot of money as well. So you're really talking about if there's an employee and a spouse together that don't have options, we're contributing $23,000 in an HRA account. That's correct. What's the savings to the city if we eliminate spousal coverage for the active as well as the retirees? You know that figure? I don't know that figure off the top of my head. Mr. Ricklin's already said it's $10,000. That's just for post. That's for post, right. So there's a totally different contribution rate for active employees than it is. Well, if we eliminated for active that have credible coverage elsewhere, wouldn't that not be a substantial savings in itself? Certainly, it would eliminate a group of a population of covered participants. For those that have credible coverage elsewhere. But you mean, and don't do the surcharge? Don't do the surcharge. Just eliminate the coverage. Just eliminate the coverage if you have credible coverage elsewhere. I'm sure Ms. Dodon is probably going to chime in here as well. What's the threshold for credible coverage elsewhere? How do we determine that? There's an ACA and an IRS threshold for determining what credible coverage is. It's based on how much it costs and how much of your income that coverage will cost you to have that. It doesn't matter if it's good or bad. It's an income ratio. I'd have to get that. You would objectively subject it. Surcharge doesn't. There is a definition for it. You'll be back here in 12 months having to change it again. It just doesn't work. I will look it up for you. You would have a model for us. We can look at it. Certainly. One of the things that we can look at it. We can look at the definition of what credible coverage is. It is certainly a recruiting tool and a retention tool for us to be able to offer health insurance for our active employees' spouses. That's a really significant thing for us. We really hadn't considered eliminating that, but we certainly will look at the numbers. If they had credible coverage elsewhere, that wouldn't be such a big recruiting tool. It would be a recruiting tool if they didn't have that. Coming in the door. We'll certainly look at it. There are employers who do that. We don't offer coverage to employee spouses who have credible coverage. They're active. That is something that we certainly can look at. I think we need to look at that seriously. Last question. Yes, ma'am. Go ahead. Just two things. This is part of my delay. Go back to the retirees and their coverage. If a retiree has the option of coverage somewhere else, how do we know that? The reason I'm asking is, I know in the past, we've had retirees that have had other jobs that had an option to be covered somewhere else, but because our coverage is so good, they've declined the coverage somewhere else. It would be in affidavit. I know that there's only so much we can do to dig into that factually, but certainly we would expect people to be honest. There's a process that the Human Resources Department would go through to seek that information, but once we've asked and we get an answer and it's on an affidavit, that's what we would have to go by, essentially. I think there's some other steps, but that's about as far as probably we would determine that. For the spouses, we would have everybody who has a spouse submit us a letter from the HR department of their spouse's employer saying that they don't have credible coverage. So we get the affidavit and we get the letter. That first question was really about the retiree's employees, so not the spouse. Yeah, they would have to just, we would have to... I'm just thinking because I know that's an expensive part of our coverage. And then my second question and comment along the lines of the spouse and I think the service charge is fair and maybe part of that is looking at what that service charge is so that it is fair and compensates us a little bit, but I would reiterate what I said before. I think that we do have that concern as far as recruitment and retention of our heard employees. We talked about this in the past where someone can leave the city and make much more in the private sector, especially when you're talking about engineering or folks with the skills that we need and part of the allure of the city is I think that we have a good healthcare coverage and if you consider adjusting it to the point where that doesn't encourage them to stay anymore, I think that we're running into a risk. So I think we need to look at all options as far as families, but when you're looking at people with younger families and I know we can't exclude children, but when you think about spouses, we have folks who have spouses who may not work or we have spouses that don't have coverage of the places and I think that a third charge is probably the best, is a fair option for us to look at as far as keeping those folks and as a recruitment and retention solution. We'd be required to offer them insurance anyway to make if they didn't have other insurance. We could just deny the spouse. Right. It will turn on the credible coverage piece. Well, no, I'm actually going to Mr. Duvall's comment. I mean, I don't know what his comment or what his suggestions are of even if they didn't have credible. There's two different things here. We're talking about credible coverage somewhere else and then we're talking about eliminating them all together and I think those are two different conversations. They are. My suggestion would be if they have credible coverage elsewhere to eliminate them from both active employees and retired employees and furthermore, what I would like to do is look at the savings that we could accumulate especially if we eliminate spousal coverage with credible coverage in the active ranks. That's going to be several million dollars and put that back into employee benefits that would help all 2,000 of our employees rather than the small percentage that would fit the criteria of having a spouse or a family that needs coverage. A lot of employers, if they do that, those spouses that don't have access to coverage would either pay the full amount. They would pay our portion, city's portion and the premium portion. So that's what a lot of employers do if their spouses don't have credible coverage. They may charge them the total cost for that coverage. So there are ways to kind of work around it. I'm getting calls so it's difficult for people here to stay online so all of us, let's see if we can lean up a little more into the microphones as we speak. Thank you. So let's talk a little bit about what this HRA looks like, how it would provide some benefit to our retirees. What an HRA is essentially, the Health Reimbursement Account, that would go into that amount that we set aside right now for the DDB, the 1130 and the 840 would go on into an HRA account. That HRA account would be used by the retiree because in this situation we're talking about the pre and potentially the post 65, that would go into an account and what they would do with that, those funds is they could use it to pay their health insurance premiums, health plan deductibles, cost for doctor's office visits, prescriptions, X-rays, any other IRS approved medical expenses. So in essence it would be instead of us having our retiree health insurance plan, we would give each individual retiree their DDB and then they would be able to go out and shop for their own plan. So for some of our retirees it would certainly be a cheaper situation than for others. So for example, we've got one here, this is an example of a pre-medicare retiree, which is an individual that's 60 years old in Richland County because what we've already done is one of our consultants and we gave this to you in a prior presentation, they did an analysis of the plans that are offered out there. And as you can see the plans are broken down and the bronze, silver or gold and depending on which plan the person chooses would depend on their deductibles out of pocket maximums and then what their monthly premiums would be. So for example, if you look down at the bottom where it says retiree pays, some retirees could pay nothing for their coverage. Our DDB could cover the entire cost of their coverage. Others may have to pay more depending on which level of coverage they choose and it also depends on where you are located geographically but there are definitely plans available out there that the retiree would be able to take advantage of. And if we did that for the post-65 there are even more plans that are available for that population because there's just more activity in the market for post-65 retirees. And I don't think I included a slide for that because I didn't think that was one of our options but we certainly have researched and looked at what those plans look like, how they're tiered and what that will look like for the retiree. So it's really a replacement of the benefit and again they would have the opportunity to go out, search the market and find a plan that's available for them. We certainly would not be forcing them to do that by themselves. We would hire a navigator who would sit down with the retiree, each of them because they each have different medical and different personal situations and help them navigate and choose which plan is best for them. So it would be based on what their current health is, what kind of prescriptions they take, those types of things in order to make the decision of which plan is most suitable for them. And then they would use that money on the HRA to pay for their premiums and they would also use it for any other medical IRS approved medical expenses that they may have. Do you have any questions about that? Such as, Pam, maybe talk about IRS approved medical expenses. It would be like copays, prescriptions, any kind of fees that you're charged in your doctor's office. It would be insulin or any type of things like that. Things that wouldn't be covered like plastic surgery, like Botox, like things that are elective, they may not be covered. That varies. The IRS changes what's covered and what's not covered. Each year seems like it because you used to could buy over-the-counter medications now that you can't do that as much anymore or at all for most of them. So it would just depend on what the IRS regulations are. So it's going to be most of your high dollar or your routine medical expenses that you'd be paying now with your coverage now. Your copays, your co-insurances, your out-of-pocket charges. If you go to the doctor and they give you a bill because you got an X-ray, you could pay for that using your HRA funds. So it's going to be most of your standard medical expenses. And if it doesn't run out on a year and during the course of one year, what happens? It depends on how we set up our HRA accounts. It depends on if we set a maximum. Some of them just continues to roll over no matter what. Others have caps. It would depend on how we design our HRA accounts to what would happen with those funds. Some of them, if you don't use it by the end of the year, then the funds go away. Others allow you to carry over some of it or all of it. It would depend on how we structured it. Can you possibly just give me a little background because I'm struggling with just the number a little bit. From an employee standpoint, we have a DBA and that could continue to grow. We're using this $1130 for the... A DDB? Yeah, for the retiree, right. But the spousal number seems kind of high to me that we're contributing 75%, but the employee is our responsibility. I mean, have we looked at changing those numbers where you... You could call it a shift or whatever, but it seems to me our responsibility is to be employee first and foremost and long-term than it is to an individual that didn't work at the city. Spouse or whatever. I mean, I don't know everybody's situation differently. I'm just sitting here looking at the numbers and going, you know, there's different ways to attack this and, you know, is the obligation that we need to be putting forward to the individual that worked here and that was their contribution because it's hard to rationalize that you're paying 75% of somebody's cost that didn't work. Well, instead of paying 100% of the cost of the person who did, just throwing out food for thought as you're looking at these numbers. Well, and the DDB that's set up now was established in 2012, so we were just in an effort to maintain that current DDB. That's what the recommendations are based on, you know, an actuarial study was done and those were the recommendations made by the consultant at that time. We can certainly look at adjusting that DDB to give more to the retiree and less to the spouse. I mean, our obligation would be to the employer or retiree. First and foremost. We can certainly look at that, but we were just maintaining what, and that's what all of, you know, all of our projected cost and all of our projected liability based on that current DDB that was established back in 2012. And so that's kind of, you know, what we've used as a guidepost for the data that you all have seen previously. But we can certainly look at that. Yeah, it's still, to me, it still becomes a question of the first and foremost responsibilities of being to the employer who worked here. He's saying that he's seeing that gets a bad drop of as you're doing math here. Some employees maybe not ever having to come out of pocket, others having to come out of pocket actually helping meet those employees' needs first before you extend the obligation to the spouses. So it's just a... Well, it's from a contribution standpoint. It doesn't make, the math just doesn't make sense. It seems so much. Like Missy said, but it was based on the 80-20 and the premiums at the time, but we're looking at all those figures back in 2012, and we haven't recalculated that DDB. Haven't increased it for inflation, anything like that. Yeah, it might be worth it doing. Take a look at what that number would do today, reflective of today based on the employee. Pre-65 or... post-65, it's clear that the better deal and the better coverage is to do it individually. Question on that. We have that formula now, as you said, because that was the standard of the model in 2012. If we go back, when you research different models, looking at spouse not contributing at all, we would or could come up with a model that maybe not contributing that much to a spouse that's not contributing, but not totally eliminated. I think, I mean, for us, I think we have a multitude of options. I think we want to figure out what the best option that, realistically, that is sustainable and where we are today is not sustainable, as you've seen the number. It's just not possible. We can sit here and try to light everybody. Everything can maintain the way it is, but it wouldn't. Five years, you won't have health care. So the reality is we have to make some changes here and we need to figure out what's best, but I think there's an obligation, first and foremost, to one group over another, and I think we need to look at it that way. Just food for thought. But until we put the numbers on the board, I mean, you just can't do that, but it seems interesting that the percentages are done that way. I think it probably goes to also just the philosophical discussion of it all as well and some of the points maybe Ms. Devine was raising. I mean, that has been the model that the city has done for many, many years. When I came to the city, I always tell the story that I was shocked because I came from a different institution or private industry and I was in my first paycheck and notice I didn't have to pay for my health care insurance. I was shocked. I was like, where's the money taken out of my check? So over time, there's been a wonderful system here at the city that could do everything we could to take care of the employees and the spouse or still live by law. We have to take care of children and dependents and spouses. I think it goes to, is it a recruitment tool? Is it something that has been a recruitment tool and now we can't really maintain that anymore? I think what we presented was based off where we've been and not going away from that philosophical... Well, I think overall the systems change. You can go to Greenville, you go to Charleston. They all have different, you know, a lot of them are eliminated. Those 65 other people are paying in this. They don't take spouses. I mean, it's constantly changing. Exactly. I think recruitment's changed. I don't think you have as many people who come and work for 2025 years like you used to. I mean, things have changed. The opportunities people are more mobile today. They don't stay in communities as long. I mean, there are all these factors but the reality is, is in 2008 and 2009, our healthcare was $14, $15 million and now we're at double. You know, and that wasn't that long ago, so making those challenges but still being able to provide for those folks who work here and serve here, you know, I think that's our... We've got to try to come up with a good balance on that and, you know, just can't have everything so we've got to figure out what's... Where's our priority? The best recruiting to would be to, you know, get our starting pay and follow on pay up by using the savings we're going to have from healthcare to... That would be a joke to everybody that works for the city going. Pay is the best recruiter. You'd have to have some savings to pay it. To pay pay. It's a... The protocol is no, but the question is I do want to make sure that... So, are you done yet? Oh, the question is... I am. I did have a question concerning when we got to the 2009 and we were backing up the 2009 and it was on the second page that it went... You know, there was even a coverage for the age of 65 for 20 years of service. Was that mean after 2009? Was it prior to 2009? Or was that mean, you know, I've got a 52-year-old person that's eligible for retirement. Who got the retirement? Now, okay, so there are two different things going on here, right? So one of them is their eligibility to retire through the South Carolina Retirement System. So a person could potentially retire because they have the use of service with the South Carolina Retirement System. Then there's the eligibility for our retiree health insurance. So there are two separate eligibility requirements. So... So current retirees would be eligible for the benefit. It would be going forward. For 2019 forward. You'd have to be 55 years old. That's new hires. Or if you're retirement eligible with your years and there's so many... Pam will have to help me with this and then I'll mess it up. There's so many ways now that retirement eligibility is... The rule of 90 applies starting in 2014, correct Pam? Through the state retirement system. If you were with the city prior to 2009 then at that point in time you only had to have 20 years with the city and you wouldn't have had to get to the 25 or 28 years. So it's all going to depend on the individual but assuming you could retire before 2021 of 2019 then you would be able to go ahead and retire and take advantage of this system. And not be 55. And not be 55. No. So up to this point we've had no age requirement. Potentially if this... If that's one of the recommendations that's accepted... Not if you were hired before 2009. Not if you were hired before 2009. Not if you were hired before... Yes ma'am. You would have to be retired now or retired by January 1 of 2019 in order to not have to meet the 55 year requirement. So you'd have to be an active retiree now or a person who retires by 1231 of 2018 in order to be under 55. After January 1st 2019 you'd have to be 55 years of age in addition to meeting the other requirement. I want to ask something. That's what we're doing right now. It would be easy. Now listen. We want questions, not a speech. So the main reason I ask the question is to ask the question and get an answer. So that's the only rule of asking questions. You actually have to ask the question. It's not post-speech, but this is an opportunity. Typically work sessions don't have Q&A, but I know a lot of questions. They're going to help inform us as we move forward. We've got a question. Please come and do it. It's probably easy to do it from where you are, but I wonder if it's just a posterity to do it at the microphone. I don't know. We don't have a walk-around might do. Yeah, so so let's go ahead. Is that okay with y'all? I don't have a problem. Yeah, let's go ahead and ask them. Don't raise your hand. Let's make sure she's finished. Okay, I'm sorry. I think she's in the question section. Yeah, she's ready for question. I'm trying to get a walk-around mic if not at the time being. We're going to try to find a walk-around mic, but only because folks who weren't able to be here and are watching online and want to be able to probably have questions asked that they can't ask from where they are. So if you don't mind come up front and ask me a question. That'd be appreciated. Yes, man. Yeah, ask your name for the record and the question. I work for the fight department. Just some things to consider. I got hired when I was 18 years old. As of January 1st, 2019, if that 55-year-old age went into effect, you'd have multiple firemen having to do 36 years in the fire service to maintain that coverage. It's just some things to consider for guys who got in at an earlier age. That's a long time in the fire service or police service. And so let me counter a little bit with that, what you're saying, and I think that's still a recommendation we're looking at. But I guess you would also have to understand that because of that age and the ability for you to continue to work and work another job, which you also do at a very young age, that also is a factor with you being able to have coverage somewhere else, potentially, where you can get insurance and still be getting the insurance from the city. So you got to look at both sides of it. But that's a fairly human concern. Thank you for raising that. We looked at that because, of course, we know the age and the demographics of our workforce. So definitely. I was curious as to why, have we explored the state health care plan? No. I'm sorry. Have we explored the state health care plan? Yes. Yes. I certainly pay $8,000 in a year and it's $3,500 I'm just curious if y'all... It's not apples in orange, it's compares. You need to talk in the microphone. You know, insurance is a numbers game and the state health plan has a whole lot more covered people than we do. They have, like... $500,000. Right. $500,000 people. So when you talk about getting a premium of $500,000 people, that's a big difference between the 2,600 employees that we have. The coverage is not comparable. It isn't as good of coverage. No, but it'll be better than what y'all offer. No. That's just not... I'd have to argue with y'all on that one. Yeah. And I also have a concern about the 55 in older. When I came here, you told me I had to work 20 years. You promised that to all people that were hired before 2000. That we only had to work 20 years. I understand it not being free, but you're telling me I'm going to have to work 15 more years to take my interest. I'm not very pleased with that. And a lot of us are not. Because I had given my time in for 25 years but I would still have to work eight more years just to take my interest. But I should be entitled to it. Because I'm an employee of the city. Yes. We understand that concern. Just so people who are... some people don't know, so currently, the cut-off day, you have to do 25 years to get retirement. Right. It depends on when you are hired. Right. Because if people who are currently here who just got hired, they have to work the rule of 90. They have to work 60 years old. Or whatever that age and retirement years equal. State law. That's the state law, right? Something we should look into is how do we just match it to the same way? Because that way it gives people the opportunity who have been in one segment in another. Well, you did do that in 2009. We matched it for what it was at that time. It changed again. Right. Because it was 25 and 28 when we made that change. What is it now? It's the rule of 90. Rule of 90. 25. You're still subject to the rule of 90. Everybody is subject to the rule of 90. So that's the other... We understand exactly what you're saying. But what if we didn't add that caveat about before 2009 and the 20 years, then you would have been following the 25 or the rule of 90. Right. I think y'all could put your grandfather in like he did when he changed to 20 years for the people that have to work more than 20 now to be fair to grandfather us then. We are grandfathering you in by adding employees hired before July 1, 2009. Because that wasn't originally just looked at what the consultant presented to us to do. They didn't even do that. This is an additional thing that we've come back and done and we did that because you're right. In 2009 there was a set of rules for the city to get insurance work in 20 years. Even employees after 2009 have to work 25 or 28 years. Those employed after 2014 have to work the rule of 90. The eligibility changes. Can you just clarify because I'm having a hard time following it. To me, if an employee was hired before 2009 then whenever there set that timeframe, what did we say 25 years, is that what I'm doing? 20 years before 2009. So whenever that segment is in, that's what this should be said, correct? So that means that if I was hired in 2000, about 20 years, but because that was 25, I would have to work in my retirement eligibility time. That's what I'm saying. So you're not retirement eligible. You won't be retirement eligible. You're talking about maintaining insurance after leaving for two years, not retiring. I'm retirement eligible in seven years, but if this 55 requirement is added on, then I won't be able to take my insurance 15 more years. Meaning that I will have to work if you're telling me I won't have to work for 55. I'm a gentleman. I'm never going to ask your age, okay? I'm trying to keep up with the numbers here. That's fine. But the way I'm understanding it is if this goes implement and I would have for 15 more years to take my insurance 15. When did you start with the city? And it will depend on, you know, how old you were when you started as to, you know, if we did institute that age requirement. That's what I'm saying. Well, you'll stop working when you you're not going to work anywhere else when you start working with the city at that age. Thank you. I don't want to work 36 years. I'm ready for you. I'll get to see you. Thank you. Thank you. If I could retire 40, I'd be happy. I'd be even retired. Hi, I'm Debra Martin, also known as D.K. Retired in 2012 from the police department of the Lieutenant with M. My question is under HRA you're saying that we would have to if that's what's going on then we would have to with the use of a navigator get our own insurance. Is that what I'm understanding? Yes, ma'am. My question is if you have pre-existing conditions, how is that going to impact being able to get insurance? You know, I've been hired by the city of Columbia since 1987. My insurance and I understand I appreciated that I didn't have to pay I was a single person I am a single person but when I go to look at I've had some health issues that have cropped up in the last couple years so if I go and look for new insurance how is that going to impact me with my pre-existing conditions now? So that's something I would like to have answer if you can answer that question. So currently under the ACA there are no pre-existing condition exclusions or that that doesn't factor into whether or not you get coverage or not Certainly no things can change and they certainly do but currently under the ACA regulations pre-existing conditions can't be used to not provide somebody with insurance coverage. Pam, talk about the network in this area or someone in their situation or any of our retirees who would be using the navigator it's not like we're Florida as we've often said in South Carolina there's going to be the blues and other groups that would probably be where they would be getting their coverage from. I don't know and this is a question being that whatever our working relationships are through the navigator with those potential coverages for these folks if that's something we could inquire about on their behalf about pre-existing conditions and that sort of thing. We'll do our best Again the ACA prohibits people from I understand that but it's her concern that if that were to go away and now we sending them out to the market is there anything any considerations that we can discuss with the providers I don't know we have to look at that or I mean they would be looking at coverages on the open market so whatever those coverages were providing is what would be out there I don't know that we could have any influence over that because if that was the case we'd be creating our own plan again and kind of getting back to where we are now so I don't know that we could influence that in any way Thank you my name is Dan Beatenball I'm from the private sector my wife is a retiree here at the city and it sounds like to me a lot of this is based on a defined dollar benefit which is set up in 2012 and basically my whole understanding of insurance is the young help pay for the old and y'all have never had two insurances one for employees and one for retirees this whole meeting I think most of the retirees are missing it now there's going to be two insurances and it sounds like y'all are trying to balance your budget by putting a lot of the cost on the retirees not that you have numbers up here this time but that's my question is why not have one insurance that covers retirees and employees that's what we have that's what we've been doing for years that's why it's costing so much because it costs $700 for a retiree and the open market is roughly $200 in a supplement we're having to create a program in ourselves that's part of the issue and that's because you're covering 88% of 2000 people when you should be covering 80% and you have a lot of retirees only 300 who are of course costing you more because these people have served the city 30 years as firemen and everything else have a lot of health issues they're costing you more they're older they're sicker in all fairness it's not just that you have to look at it globally in that question because we've also been supplementing spouses, families and everything else so you can't just say it's just one individual that this group is carrying this group because that's not true we've got individuals who have never or a family, let's use a family of four premium but then we got individuals who've cost the city five times what the rest of the groups cost so it's just there's not two separate groups so that's why they're having it separate no that's not at all what we're saying what we're saying is that we have one we've had one insurance the whole time but we've created a program to carry when there's better options that we should be looking at that provide better coverage and care we're spending extra money just to cover which doesn't make sense it doesn't make sense as long as like I say my money is the entirety we've served the city for so long yet a fair plan that is affordable and that's exactly what we're trying to do we're trying to make it sustainable and I promise you that's our concern too that's the reason we're sitting here we're looking at affordability whether they're with us or they're in the private sector let me say this y'all and I know this is always a tough issue to discuss and I tell myself I'm going to listen more than I talk today if you have more questions I want people to ask their questions too hopefully we'll get some more concerns address this is a great deal different than what our consultants brought this is not an exercise in balancing the budget and I always hate when it's characterized as something that's just as simple as that this is not balancing the budget this is indeed an exercise in just pure sustainability how do we make sure that people have access to health, insurance, coverage as long as we possibly can and make sure it's affordable whereas many of our folks retirees and if we can their families as well as long as we possibly can cities all across this country are eliminating it not reducing it eliminating it cities, counties, and states so I don't want you to think that we're going through some callous penciling of a budget process here that seeks to deny someone anything believe me if we could have a social coverage of everybody within our reach whether it be city employees, the dependents or anyone else we would do that it is not sustainable it's not sustainable so this is an exercise in fiscal responsibility, fiscal courage and just pure sustainability how do we make sure that not only do we provide health insurance coverage but how do we make sure that we're actually able to provide fire protection coverage to the people of the city, police protection coverage, basic services I mean that's what this discussion is about it is not sustainable to look at 30 years down the line to have a billion dollar non-pensionally the long term liability it's just not it's just not and it would be it would be not just imprudent but irresponsible for us to not go through this process and figure out how we can do this in as thoughtful in as fair way possible I promise you that's where our heads are that's who we're trying to get to it is a tough process it's a tough process not just for you all but for each and every one of us for the people in this room that many of whom you may know and you love and work side by side with for years but it's not easy and I don't want anyone to think it's just us figuring out how to balance our budget here that's not what this is we work side by side with you I will tell you that people in this room including several our employees that I interface with every single day would be adversely affected by this I love them like brothers and sisters so I don't want you to think that's not the process we're trying to work through this in some way that makes sense but still allows the city to continue to provide services to everyone who's out here long term as well as meeting the needs of our employees so don't work through it together but it's not a simple penciling exercise so you've had your hand up a couple of times you might come to the microphone if you don't, do you leave where do you go you can come on up in the meantime I want you to go up sorry, you can follow him don't want to raise his hand back there if he comes back up he can go up there retired assistant chief from the fire department 34 years good to see you again everybody a lot of people are forgetting I've heard and I've tried to catch what everybody's been saying a lot of people are forgetting the retirees that are extremely ill you cannot go out and get another job you're talking about eliminating post 65 coverage for all retirees I've got a couple of good friends right now that can't go out so here if you go eliminate that and their spouse they're going to have some problems I'm speaking up for them and I've heard what this young lady has been saying about as far as post 65 going out and getting cheap coverage because there's cheap coverage out there I like to know where it's at because my wife will be 70 next year and believe me we've called around and you're looking at $400 to $600 difference higher we call three or four different companies how much is that? it was like $400 to $600 higher we even call united healthcare with the city contributing what she's paying $45 or something like that it was almost $500 I'm sorry that presents a burden and eliminating that is going to affect a lot of retirees a lot of their families if they've got any families left I've got a wife you're going to put a real burden and I understand the city's got a burden and I've met Mr. Rickerman four years ago we didn't agree then we totally agree now I'm sorry I think that's kind of unfair to say that because you don't know where we're at we're working really hard and I'm the one who brought up the fact that we ought to be looking at not eliminating post 65 yes you did let's be fair you're right I apologize for you on that but let's also think about the retirees who cannot get out there and go to work who have illnesses okay and there are quite a few if you eliminate that post 65 curse for our retirees you're going to present them with a big problem that's all I got that's all it's united healthcare that we have uh can that be renegotiated because I find that united healthcare does not pay much of a benefit so if I'm wrong on that y'all tell me but I get very little out of united healthcare I try not to be too expensive I was to go through some really rehabilitation and those people over there was $100 to start off with I said no because I could see where it was going well I just have to go home and do it myself you know because I don't want to be that kind of expenditure on the city or nobody else that's not my nature to take care of your neighbor but anyway can you renegotiate anything with united healthcare and maybe get us a little better situation there or eliminate those folks and put it on the other things I love my agriculture by far I'm ready to die I made it too so that's it that's it thank you thank you we do look at our post 65 coverage and try and work with the carriers to get us cheaper coverage the quality is we have a very small number of people that we're covering and they have very high expenses so the insurance companies really don't want to take on that that responsibility I don't know if it's about liking you I think it's about the dollars and cents of it all because we have a really small population and when you have a small number it's more expensive because you have less people no offense here it's all about getting in the most participants and that typically is your cheaper coverage when you have more participants that are in your coverage in that kind of the advantage that we've heard from some other folks about getting into the platform that I don't know if it's ARRP whoever that has the platform I think there's like 27 different styles of supplement because that's what we're talking about here it's a supplemental Medicare is first and foremost to get a gap but if there is issues with that program we need to know about that as well as we move forward it does supplement Medicare good afternoon my name is David China I'm with the fire department I have a quick question with the insurance plan set in place right here how are we going to recruit there's a good means of recruiting and retaining because a lot of people they might come to see this you know it won't be beneficial to them I give the city 25-30 years of my life at the end of that while I retire I'm just going to the wayside how is this a good insurance plan to retain good employees on all aspects with you giving that much service then you should probably be grandfathered into that prior to July 1, 2009 I think you're exactly and that's what I was about to say but you're exactly right and that's probably the biggest concern I was listening to Mayor Benjamin and listening to all of the great comments in here but the people that are truly impacted by what we're having to do are working right now they're not in this room to necessarily comment with us right here right now because they're working but the fact of the matter is your retirement eligibility still comes into play too so that's also what we looked at trying to balance all this the reality of it is you're going to have to meet that rule of 90 if you so will you would you realistically be working for the city 30 years 25 years I don't know maybe and I completely understand it is a numbers game but going into I'm just going to speak speaking biasly but with the fire and police and other departments in the city you put your body through a different strain than anyone else you know I've had friends who fell through floors had ceilings falling on top of them police officers go through a strain you know 25 I started out my co-worker earlier started out at 18 but in 10-15 years your body is to a 70 year old just about and I just I know I just want you all to consider that I will tell you we're asking ourselves those very same questions not just in recruiting the best but also retaining the best and then balancing that against just real fiscal realities but we ask those same questions and they never easy thank you my name is Jeff Dickey I retired from the police department last year I'm probably one of the luckier ones because I'm younger and I don't have to so this is actually I could probably take enough I have two questions if your defined benefit was set in 2012 the insurance cost you saw the chart have gone up yes well that's good the way it was voted on was that defined benefit would stay the same and that the retirees premiums would be adjusted to increase to keep that DDB the same which we have not increased retiree premiums to the rate that the cost has increased so the DDB was set and we've been supplementing the difference between what the retirees are paying and what the DDB is and we haven't been maintaining the DDB actually we've been paying more than the DDB the whole time well we we talked about maybe looking at adjusting the DDB I don't know that might be something that we'll consider and my other question is going back to the 20 years with the city 25 with the eligible retirement what if somebody has their 20 with the city they're not 55 but they can retire under say they get disabled they're 52 they've got 20 with the city haven't met the years, total years with the state but they can because the disability is different though well honestly that's the dilemma that we face that people face right now everybody who works for the city need the eligibility for insurance if they go out they could have worked here 19 years and get injured and they got to go out on disability retirement they're a year short so we have to make that call every single day so there are some people who work here who've worked here 19 20 years and they don't get the insurance depending on when they came in and when they leave my question is if they meet the 20 years with the city and they meet the 55 they retire disabled but they don't have the 28 with the state program if their retirement eligible with the state whether that's through disability or regular retirement eligible they'll still be eligible for the insurance they just have to be retirement eligible so if they meet all the other requirements then they could be eligible I hate to make promises because the lower nose y'all will hold me to them so I'm trying to speak in broad terms because everybody's situation is different so I don't want to I don't want to make a promise that I can't keep I'm Brandon with the fire department retired I've got a couple small questions first of all I appreciate all the hard work y'all do and obviously we're frustrated and it's very understandably why we now have some tighter budgets on the retiree side we're down to 53% I heard your note you got your numbers right half of them but on the normal percentage when we're working another year that comes out to be an average what we've averaged about 50 to 65 dollars a month for the average employee depending on where you're at but I just work some numbers before I left that's not enough so far to pay for these expenditures if I have a expense right now if I lower my wife if I drop her off for coverage right now because she gets a job I can't add her own in two years and so that's thinking the idea that hey if my wife has coverage or my dependents have coverage with my wife will we be able to add her back on if she doesn't have that good job maybe in two years I think that's something we've not talked about yet but as of right now if I drop her we cannot add her back on if I go to a lower coverage I can never get to higher coverage am I right so far? good so we want to see if we can get all that so if we're talking about being fair and you want to reward me for being a good maybe a healthier employee or post employee you know as a retiree I think it would be responsible to add that whichever the initials were to carry over if you're going to give me $1,000 or $1,500 we were talking about would it go over would it be a cap would it get put back in the big fund it would only be responsible because I didn't get kidney stones this year but I'm going to get them next year you know what I mean it's a Russian Roulette game but if we're saying part of the new budget is to give him this amount of money I think it would be responsible to let me keep it out of balance to roll it over we're going to take that retiree's wife or spouse and put him or her out because they have suitable coverage whatever that suitable coverage is you've got to be able to allow them back in if they lose their job or with the state if they lose their job it's got to be a little bit more of a better system because again y'all got a tough job now I really do appreciate it I've been watching you for my whole career and the number one word he has always said is yours constituents your constituents and now that's exactly who we are we're not employees of the signaling we're y'all's constituents and so we're actually the people y'all are going to work for and it's more than just a numbers game and it's not just as easy because the whole time when the rates were going up with insurance that same eight years we weren't getting raises in the city there was a huge amount of time and so that's just where we were and that's not the throw stones there's a lot of things that's eight years that we weren't able to contribute more to the 401 or the 457 to get to a point where we can handle these extra fees the last thing is I don't know what it costs to operate some of the different departments or to train them in their positions but I know how much it costs to train a firefighter I know how much it costs after four months in a recruit school to train a placement in some of the higher your architect that Mr. was talking about or your engineers and when we potentially have a mass exodus of the employees that you have right now because they're saying hey this stinks this is not what I was in for it's not going to happen to the 20 year employee this only got eight to go but the guys from zero to ten whatever that is I think that should be part of your study how much extra is it going to cost chief Jenkins in his budget that he don't have already in the five year planet he just tried to add last week saying hey we're going to be the best in the city we're going to be the best over the next five years but I'm staying lower here because it's costing me so much in my budget and hey I need more money which we don't have because we're spending on health care there's a lot more parts of the moving parts that we've got to see and I think there's more parts of the study because there's going to be a mass exodus I'm telling you it's coming that's all they're talking about all the young guys are talking about you know and I was that smart that they leave I'm not saying I didn't I'm not agreeing with you because I want them to have that definition of a pension one day we don't have a lot of pensions out there but for the ones that he said it very clear that can go to the private sector especially some of the mechanics and some of the engineers and the architects and make more money you can't sell them on the idea because this is why we're here the whole time when we love it and it was a good job for a good benefit nobody ever got rich with any of the jobs including y'all in the city ever but we always talk about the benefits and it stinks now because when we get to this age I think a lot of play into it but when we're talking about how much money is going to cost the people that are leaving because of this new plan and it's not just I know in the first part we said hey these guys are not getting charged as much but they're saying hey in 25 years I'm going to go make me more money so I can invest properly if they do all right I'm going to invest more money so I can handle my health care because this is coming again in two years we're going to be sitting back at the bank but I ask you that to consider to try to maybe keep one of the lower statuses or some of the lower stuff and there's some great questions in here what we do with our spouse what we do with that HRA money or the accounts I mean it's coming it's coming and depending on what decisions y'all make now y'all got to make decisions I get it tough job I appreciate the hard work I really do but the decisions that are made next Tuesday night over this budget concerning this insurance is going to affect how much your budget is about to get busted and I think the train that's coming down the track is just we're getting off but I appreciate you thank you I'm CEO Clark I've been here since 1982 and when I came when of course the big pitch was I'd never had to pay for insurance in my life well I can understand that just as it's going on today everything gets nothing but more expensive when y'all are sitting down and thinking about how we're going to proceed for the employees that come into future and us that's I just turned 62 so I'm a pre 65 but in three years I will be post 65 so of course I'm a little interested in the things that we're looking at with the HCA and HRA and things will the HRA will y'all be doing a yearly update on that to reflect the actual cost of any increases as year whether it be good or bad you know inflation sometimes it goes up sometimes it goes down will y'all be adjusting that figure on a yearly basis or is it like the DB what is the DBB that hasn't changed since 2012 then the HRA will be what the DBB is whatever that's determined to be what I'm getting at if it's 1130 bucks for today if 20 years insurance doubles with the HRA still state the same or will you reflect the actual increase for the health care or else it would raise our hope and liability the numbers would take no it would not adjust just as we established the fine dollar benefit to keep down those long term liability numbers however just as we're discussing here this council or future councils can determine otherwise theoretically the answer would be no because if you did then you would obviously be increasing that long term liability but that's not that this council may change its mind in future and future councils may as well none of you y'all at all thank you afternoon like many have said before my name is Victor Kemper like many have said before it's a very difficult one I understand health care decisions are the most terrible decisions that affects all of our lives guys with health insurance too voting on what to do with your wives and their health insurance and things as well and I understand that but I encourage you to councilman bickman talked about an obligation to continue to think about that obligation for these guys who have come in and fought fire for 20 years ago and now their bodies breaking down that there's gotta be a way to find a way to find health care for them even if that means finding revenue streams that we've talked about in the past and I know that in the past I've seen these franchises or something like that I don't know how that would work I can tell you that as it stands Hannah was right that if you do change it for active employees or retirees you'll find that many employees leave they'll have no reason to stay fire employees and police have the opportunity to work for a different department without having those 25 years here or a reason to stay for 25 years they can go wherever the prisons or anything like that same with the fire departments throughout the midlands just to encourage you to look at those things and think hard we're the ones who've protected the city for years and we hope to continue to do so but we have to thank our families for the questions I think too is the those questions and answers are very helpful as well too they were very helpful and we are constantly doing our homework we'll go back and do some more you know I would say that the city is not that much different from other agencies you're going to find a gamut of how people are handling post employment benefits and active and we can write up there with the best of the best so I hope and pray we don't see a mass exodus to say that agencies situated to us are not necessarily going to be this plethora of health care benefits because everybody's facing the same issues we are but we hope that's not the case and sometimes the salary is better for people that live in Charleston but they live in Charleston so the cost of living is higher in Charleston so everything is relative with that well I'm talking about the health care cost so that's what the issue was about if you leave to get the health care for the moment so regardless if there is this coming I'm just telling you it just depends on it's coming anyway Mr. Ruckerman made me comment that people don't stay in the jobs anymore again I don't think average young people understand the you never get some attention regardless if they do or don't it's coming it doesn't matter if they're young or if they're smart or if they're great we're just costing the city money in another area where we're trying to save money it doesn't matter why they're going up here if they're smart or if they're great what they're going to and what we do to retain them and your plan says hey I'm going up and I'm going doing this I'm going to do this oh by the way you got a lot more money I'm telling you that's a tough thing especially when they say hey I'm going to do all this for this wall I'm going to be broke again I'm going to play and do your thing everybody's going to have to part of it is state law rules too and again we said earlier we're looking at the population and trying to balance it based on who's really going to be impacted because the state law would say now you're going to have to stay so are people really going to do that if you're going to meet the rule of 90 for example I mean there's lots of things because we're going to make this whatever decisions we make right now it's also about other decisions that we have to follow to be retiree retirement eligible unless we say you don't have to be retirement eligible retirement eligibility has changed significantly correct I just want to encourage you all that we're all having those same conversations I mean about recruitment about employment about obligations to retirees about quality of life about families these are not black and white numbers on a sheet we're discussing all those things and I will tell you even the presentation here today is a far stretch from the different plans that present us over time we're trying our best to take into account all these concerns but you're right some of the long term concerns regarding pensions or possibility of writing pensions a lot of young employees don't think about that they should a lot more focus on that but just again I want to make sure you all know this is a this is a living breathing discussion we're trying to balance some very challenging global fiscal issues that others have decided just from pun-off and this is a no absolutely and it's helped us and we've had a we've had a vigorous dialogue amongst council members individually and collectively and my guess is we're going to continue to placement help them thank you thanks everyone the next part of the presentation is regarding the proposed budget Mr. Mayor and Missy Kaufman budget and program management director will come forward to present the fiscal year 2018 2019 proposed budget does that mean some love all around the country all pick out a lot of that all that thank you thanks you know who's there she works she got years of that's a great thing that's a big deal but that was her choice what was You know, it's okay, but, you know, here today, I'll let Nicole to honor it. Yeah, all three of y'all have come to say that to me, I will. I should have done it at the beginning. Huh? I could have started from the beginning. Not in my office, but I'll get them for you. I do have some of those filters at the tonal. I was thinking about that myself. I was thinking about the same thing. The question comes is, do you agree with me that this is my responsibility or this is my responsibility? That's going to make a difference. I didn't realize that how much we were suffering. I think, I think if we look at that, I bet we could take care of all the employees. 100 percent. Mm-hmm. Do we, do we expect? I think we do. Are we, are we able to say to the employees, these are the opposite employees in the private sector? We don't, we don't know how. To run and go work for somebody else, I mean, the private sector is not providing health care. Oh, something. I mean, you know, there's no offense. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Call me, like the bastard. Yeah, your microphone just came off. No. Oh that, this. Yes, sir. Hello, sir. How are you doing? I'm doing well. Well, we looked at pictures of Joe's guests from first going out there, Matt went out to Matt's home out there earlier and set up water. So I can get it on, but we could head her to the school a bit and charge in line and then it's a stopper. So I don't think this would happen right now, but everybody had what we've been doing to end it. That's all you know. No. I don't think it would get fired away. I'm going to just take the phone. I'll get the phone back. I'll get you the phone. So that's what I was going to say. That's what I was going to say. I mean, that's what I was going to say. They said, you know, this is what I was going to do. The number is, it is. This is the number you're going to do. That again. So let's leave it at that. Ah, man. We know. Just talking. I'm talking to this neighborhood. Maybe. Different. Have fun. We're not. Who's baby? Well, no. Thank you. Thank you. I love the district. I love it. I love it. I mean, they don't hold you guys responsible. Theresa, are we waiting on me or are we waiting on him? Are you ready? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Wow, it's four o'clock. I lost the audience for this conversation. No, that's fine. Keep moving on. We just want to keep going. Today is our final budget workshop before we had the public hearing. The budget has been advertised, both the budget as well as the water and sewer rate. The ordinance has been advertised, and then the... It's the whole ordinance. So today we're going to talk about the proposed budget. We'll be talking about the general fund. Then we also have our enterprise funds, which is water, sewer, stormwater, and parking each three separate funds. Our special revenues include hospitality tax and accommodation tax. We do not have CIP with us today, but we'll present you all the cap on improvement program, which we have a cap on improvement program for water and sewer and stormwater. Those will be ready for you during the budget public hearing for next week. So just to refresh everybody where we have landed with our budget is the total operating budget of the city of Columbia is proposed at $346,956,771. Of course, general fund and water and sewer make up the largest... What was that? General fund and water and sewer make up the largest portion of that budget. Water and sewer is now exceeding the general fund in terms of the largest piece of the pie. As already has been mentioned, this budget has been met with a dose of reality. We're also trying to seek some resiliency in terms of what we're doing going forward and some sustainability. So a number of the decisions and other actions in terms of balance this budget are being taken in both of these areas. Starting with, of course, the general fund. And what we are really doing today is just sort of highlight for you those things that have happened since the last budget discussions. This is intended to be a complete overview of the entire budget, which we'll be preparing for the public hearing for next week. So the general fund budget is in balance at this point. It was advertised at $148,101,152. A total of increase of 5.4 million, about 4%. I want to point out that the largest portion of that $5 million increase, 4 million of that is for the capital improvement program. The capital improvement program is originally targeted at $8 million per year, so we borrow $8 million and then we spend $8 million. In the current year, 17-18, it was only $4 million. So when we adjust it back up to the $8 million, that accounts for that 4 million. If it weren't for that increase in the capital improvement program, the general fund budget would only be increasing $1.4 million. That's less than 1% over the current year budget. Question on that. The reduction. I guess you know, will we know what in the capital improvement area is impacted as a result of borrowing? The program that I'm referring to is a capital replacement program, and that's for our rolling stock. And occasionally we also do some technology upgrades, like when we have to refresh our desktops or major heavy equipment. In this case, what we're referring to for the $8 million is our fire trucks, these cars, garbage trucks, our traffic engineering boom trucks, it's heavy equipment. It's also some investigator cars. So it's the things that, and it's just replacement of existing. Occasionally there may be some new equipment in there, but pretty much it's just to help us retain and be able to replace our, and upgrade, keep our fleet refreshed. I'm sorry, I was thinking. Yeah, so this is capital replacement, yes sir. Thank you. Of course, the budget was balanced without a property tax increase proposed. It reflects funding to maintain our current minimums, our current minimum service levels. In other words, we are maintaining existing operations. This is not taking into account reducing operations nor really expanding upon or adding new services. Growth is limited to increased costs for operations and actually it's even less than what the cost would be in the sense of the CPI. If you've taken into account, as mentioned, the four million, the budget increased less than 1% over the current year. The budget development goals are resiliency, sustainability, and being able to provide quality services that we provide on a daily basis to our citizens and residents and customers. So you get into this trap all the time. No proposed tax increase, but we are having increases. Yes, that's correct. Yes, that's right. So the increase, what accounts for the, in other words, the increase is being covered within the increase of the revenues that we have, or by decreasing costs in other areas. Where are we on attacking the 4,000 parcels? Actually, we have a little bit about that where we're going to talk about towards the end of the general fund piece, but we can go ahead and jump to there. I think it's important as we're talking about funding and costs. Right. So let me go ahead and just jump to that slide and we can come back. So what we have been talking about, we've proposed a couple of different things with you all in terms of some new fees and some other options. What we have found through our discussions is that several of these fees, in order to meet the requirements to be a new fee, not just a tax replacement, is it really needs bottom line is it needs to cover those things for new costs and new services. So what we are looking at more is some new programs and new activities that we have talked about with you all with regards to our smart city initiatives, some of the public safety enhancements, some of the expansions of our emergency operations, as well as our general capital improvements and our investments in the city infrastructure. So what City Manager is proposing is to be able to develop with you a schedule for those continued conversations so that we can bring to you a program that would help us to utilize resources both for either new resources or reprogramming existing resources to be able to implement some of the programs we talked about. Smart city initiatives should be, is one example, or some of the public safety enhancements. That's what we are talking about. That's the goal. That's the goal. Would you, as you go on these slides, are you referenced them by numbers so that you can follow those? Yes, I'm sorry. Now we are on, oh, the slide numbers have jumped off. Slides are missing. So now we've jumped to the slide that says future discussions on identifying funding. Let me see if I can number it real quick. Numbers are gone now. So, back to my initial question. How are we handling those? I think we need to handle those in this budget. Well, it won't be in this budget because to get to what Mr. DeVall is also saying is that those would be for new cost and new expenses. So as we put together... We're not about existing 4,000 parcels. Right, and also... We're not paying an equal offset the cost. It is not fair to continue to carry that burden on the homeowner. And the businesses, our commercial districts that are non-profits are struggling. You look at a triple net lease today, what it's costing somebody. Because of the way the tax structure is, and we're continuing to allow this non-tax paying base growth, so what are we doing about it? We have no real growth. We have no real growth. So, I mean, our plan this year, we need to overhaul the way we do business. And I'm talking about DDRC and all these impediments that are continuing to get complaints about. But we also need to attack. We're a government city and we're drowning by non-profits. And so, they need to pay a fair share. We need to address it. We need to have it now, not later. So, I would love to have included that in the budget. A couple of the items we looked at, we've also got some legal advice for them, but I think the approach we were taking so that we can do it, be careful about how we do it and what we present to you. Was to take it sort of under advisement and work it into the discussion that you've asked for with your upcoming budget work. Well, they're not budget workshops, but economic development type workshops. And see how we can roll it in. If we do it that way, though, it would be working towards that in the 19-20 budget. But now, unless we're able to get a different answer and it's given so. I got a great way. Enhanced water. That was discussed last time. So, we absolutely agree. Based on the direction that we have and the information we were given in terms of looking at these fees, to be able to cover new costs and new programs. How we structure them is really what we're getting. And so some of these would be some of the discussions Wilson's addressed. And we've talked about the street light fee. We've talked about some nonprofit type of fees. Impact fee or... We're struggling. We don't disagree. Especially in terms of... We're struggling. Please. We're getting drowned. And, you know, we've got... So it's... Everything from Bailey Bill to... So have we looked at... We've got a bunch of properties coming off Bailey Bill sometimes soon. That's a keeping in mind. There's no hope for it. So the staff, as relates to Daniel's question, have we come up with some different formulae as to how we might calculate that going forward? We have formulas for one of them at least. As we've investigated one of the other ones more for the nonprofit pieces. We've looked at two different options. And so it's really a matter of having more discussions with you all. So some's a service area. Some is basically particular types of services. Particularly types of services, particular types of areas. To be able to do most of those, you have to have a pretty calculated cost of service and how that service is getting a higher level of service and what's being paid right now. So it's just the different factors that we're looking at. And then in terms of which direction we go, it's a matter of talking with City Council more directly in terms of the directions. Like earlier when we've had conversations, there was maybe not as much of an interest in putting a fee on our water bill. But if it's not on our water bill, to be able to look at something more of a bill... Not on our water bill, their water bill. Sure. Let's specify that. You're right. So none of these kind of conversations as we've come through. I think the idea to this argument is to not stop. I mean, I don't think we're going down at all on it to continue to do the research with all the input we need from people and everyone else. But to move forward with something in place to say that over so that you're educating the public. If we were to do it now... I think that's fine. Maybe it would, you know... What I don't want to do is wait until next fiscal year because I'm telling you, our constituency, they're stopping these guys. I mean, the commercial... You guys don't like to talk. We don't like when we talk about whether it's student housing tax abatement or other tax abatements. The reality is that our commercial taxes because of residential property taxes and the ability to effect them by 388 and the disproportionate amount of property not on the tax flows here and probably every other city in the state has led to a significant disproportionate amount of tax burden being borne by our commercial citizens. It's just real. And that grows every time the University of the hospital takes something off the tax flows or a church for that matter or a shopping center. I mean, it's just real. I mean, it's not subjective. It's objective. It's math. And we've got to be thoughtful as to how we're going to address this. And I think... Honestly, even the previous discussion underscores this one. It's being very deliberate and intentional. Coming up with a formula that makes sense. It's fair for all parties involved. And we'll start discussing it as a body. We will do that. I mean, we've already been working on it, but I don't want you to think just because it's not in this budget that we're going to slow down at all. Bring it in for me. I'll show the projection that I understand. The projection here is to push forward and make it $2,200. The FY 2019 winning budget. We'll continue to have these discussions with some workshops with you all. Economic development matters, et cetera. And probably by overtime frame, have some recommendations in place that we can actually implement within the next budget cycle. We're not going to do that. And that's what was highlighted in your cover memo, Miss Wilson, in terms of evaluating both revenue... Just resources in general, whether it's new revenue streams or existing reallocations of cost in terms of being able to forward some of these new initiatives. Obviously our goal in terms of being able to sustain this budget is being able to maintain the services we have, but obviously there's a desire, an equal desire to add and grow some of our services in our programs and being able to identify the resources to do that with. And that's going to take a joint conversation in general for certain, for certain. If somebody could help me out with Miss Devine in terms of the page numbers, I'm going to back up to the revenue slides. I don't know what slide number that is in terms of the complete package because it included the memo as well as other attachments. I don't know if Erica can see it on the... Can you see it on the actual PDF of the screen? Okay. If you just save the title, I'll be able to find it. This is the 2018 general fund and it's the revenue slide. It's got a bar chart. It's page 22 of the packet. So revenue totals for the general fund are proposed at $129.3 million. That's an increase of 2.6 million or right of 2 percent. And of course the largest increase is in property tax revenues, which are projected at $1.7 million, which is about 3 percent increase over current year budget. You can see in the terms of the way we've stacked our revenues, general fund, revenue sources, the primary sources are property taxes, and then of course from permits and licenses. Transfer is in. The capitalist proceeds is $8 million, which increases... which is the increase, as we mentioned, from the $4 million to the $8 million for the capitalist program, which is our capital replacement program. Then we also have the use of fund balance. We've reduced that from 3 million to 1.7 million, and that was also in order to help sustain our goals, sustainability, and be able to use less of our fund balance. Which we also need to make sure that we have the fund balance. Be able to meet that through our targeted projection at 15 percent. Pardon? For 18? Several months. Yeah. Once we can get to the audits. So we've already... we bid into last year. We've already bid into... We've already set us out last year. We didn't... That's right. It's in the package. It's in the budget package that you have. It's in the budget that you have in your package. So with that as well, and then two of course, our 15 percent target is based on revenue. So that 15 percent target increases every year that our budget increases. So going forward on general fund again, looking at the expense side, department budgets total 123 million. Of course, as you all know, as we were bringing the budget forward to you, balancing the budget, the budget, the 123 million reflects a reduction of 6.7 million in healthcare costs. That's both from plan design changes as well as liability changes and from also the credit we are anticipating to receive from state retirement for the increase in the state retirement system rates. Right now, the department budgets that are before you do not reflect that reduction depending upon final sort of actions on that decision. And so we will adjust department budgets accordingly. We've also eliminated funding from the department requested budget that has been presented to you over the past several months. We've eliminated 3.5 million in new requests for department programs and services as well as an additional 1.5 in requested budgets. So those were primarily the items used that were helping us to balance this budget on top of some of the revenue increases that were projected earlier. This does include continuation of the payment performance merit program of 1 million in the general funds portion. That's for the employees in the general fund. Of course the other funds have funds in there as well for those employees. Good question. What is the are we doing a COLA this year? So the proposal is for merit. I was looking at the salary ranges and differences on the department budget. Seems like it's relatively moderate. That's correct. And those numbers what? Every department's budget will actually end up going down from what's on your list right now because once we reflect the changes for health care. But otherwise in health care was primarily the only increase in the department's budget. The cost of living was included in the current year budget. So looking at the jail detention. Did we ever get the numbers that we requested last October? Which numbers? From the county which we get monthly information. The former million dollar director had promised us numbers because if they're charging us $30 a day for 20,000 people in the jail. It's per day per person. So if you're in there for five days you get that $25 per person. We get a listing every year from as low as 900 to 1500 I guess my struggle is we've never gotten the paperwork to show what they're charging because they should be charging themselves the same amount because we're all simply into it. For the jail, we pay for the jail with bond that the city employees pay I mean the city constituents, tax payer. We're continuing, I want to see the numbers before we pay them any more money. Every contract that we've had with them, we've been scrutinized and gone painfully through a discussion with them. How many months can we get the jail numbers? Even when Kit Smith was on council and we never could get them. Howard, you might get them from the rest of us. So we don't know what they're charging themselves in terms of operation. I'm curious are they charging or are they just charging the municipalities in it? That's double taxation. I mean it's five years ago, seven years ago and $230,000. It's $600 a day. I don't know who you ask but that would be good information. I don't know. I'll send us the bill. She'll send us the bill. No. Let's ask again. We're in original cooperation. We can share some information that we get to on a monthly basis. So non-departmentals total $6.3 million of that, $1.2 million increase 23% the large of that being the proposed increase for the debt service payment payment for the capital lease program. The current year we've maintained current funding levels for external agencies which includes the Alvin Escalin Detention Center $100,000. That's the current amount in this year's budget. We increased it in the current year to reflect their increased in per inmate per day rate in the current year and so far we're able to sustain that amount. Public Defender is $100,000. The Solicitor is in at $215,000. And then the homeless services maintained at $1 million which of course that includes four different contracts that the city reports with those funds. Transfer is out, total $17.8 million that includes $3.2 million increase. Again $4 million of that is for the or $8 million of that is for the capital replacement program. It also includes our debt service payments and transfers to the component units. I do want to point out that again this year in the budget there is no funding for capital improvement program for the general capital project. We've already discussed the additional resources. Next is talking about affordable housing. City Council in January adopted affordable housing program. It was estimated that about $350,000 would be from the general fund. What we're proposing is that we would use a portion of yet to be determined savings from this fiscal year. Should there be any for that towards that funding in the interim. There are funds being used from other grants to help fund. Can we do an SSR credit for housing? We should. We keep talking about putting money in these things. Why aren't we creating that same atmosphere? I think the exact same approach we're taking is feeding housing. We should take affordable housing. We ought to be able to give folks incentives. We're talking about 100% nothing versus a portion of something. That was included in the memo sitting everybody last year. Okay. That's why we need to figure out how we can do that. Like you do in multi-county where it's just a county. We're not getting that discussion. They pay the full rate and then we credit them back. And then that way it's an easy, clean deal when everybody understands it. The proposal before was to incentivize mixed use, mixed income housing. And we did this commercial. We qualified for whatever tax payment we had attached to it. It was 50% for 10 years or what have you, but try to really aggressively go after what we want, not what people want to give us. I think you create that environment. Because especially if you make them pay the 6% and you credit it back then they actually got to deliver. And then they'll also get potentially the 4% of program through state housing. That's just a creative tool. Just put it out there and see what happens. We wind up. This is what we can do. Again, there's no money out of our pockets. We just create the environment and see what the market will bear. I think people will rush in with housing. We can incentivize 60% to 120% AMI if we want to. So you're capturing working families all the way up to ambitious young professionals or what have you. Again, that was in the mix last year. The thought then was see if we can incentivize it heavily all across the city. So we're not concentrating in one district. See if we can find four areas all across the town. If you tell people what you want and what you're willing to incentivize not just what they want to bring then I think you wind up with much nicer product and it'll be born by the private sector not by the public sector. That's the difference between doing the student housing abatement versus what you're talking about. Us coming up with areas that we won't develop and the type of development we want and incentivizing that. I can go with that. We'll put it back on the table again. I don't mind. Let's refresh that memo. It's important to note that the first round of student housing we did a couple years ago while it may not have been location specific it was very specific and what we were willing to incentivize in terms of not invested in terms of design review and the like it was very specific. It was not location specific. But no, I think again it's telling people what you want and not making it overly restrictive so that there's no opportunity to profit there. But let's build a mousetrap and get the heck out of the way and let's see what the private sector will bear. I had a guy that called me last week that he's got, I think, a federal affordable housing and I think also they were looking at single family models the mixing tools rent to buy that's kind of iffy sometimes. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. But everything else I'm seeing out there on the internet a lot of these cities are in fact looking at affordable housing mixed income and also they're using it as as launching as a redevelopment it's really tied in not just housing but a redevelopment plan, a redevelopment strategy for parts of cities municipalities that lead and are struggling to redevelop because we do that that's the way to go for me and that's kind of what I'm hearing out there people don't pay it to going back to some of our weaknesses I was struggling they don't say it but they see it and they recognize it kind of wish that we do do something about it I'm on board with that on your slide there you talked about taking the 350 that we don't have available in the general fund but maybe funding you're talking about just that 350 with savings on the health plan are you talking about all those savings on the health plan? all savings on the general fund budget at the end of the year not just health care savings like once we complete the year, fund balance use of fund balance you come with an incentive and you sunset it on day one it's a good incentive you'll find some activity there if you do something like this because we are 17.9% total tax money we really need the county pardon so we're going to have to have a discussion with them because housing it depends when you talk affordable housing with them they have said recently that's a big priority of theirs but when we just had discussion a year ago we'll talk about something similar to this that included parking with it the feedback we received was they weren't interested in doing the housing they were interested in doing the walking commercial does that change? I don't know rain living would indicate at least it's changed for someone but those in this position would count so those are we're going to have to start this conversation again with them well I don't think it's fair to use that as an example because we all know there's another incentive behind that what are you going to do with the savings on health care for the 17-18 budget at all there are no savings in the 17-18 budget the changes we're making now don't go into effect until January 2019 18-19 18-19 that would be this that's what helped balance remember we had the budget was $15 million shortfall combinations of the health care reductions to departments budgets and revenue adjustments okay so the savings in the health care have already been programmed into this budget right we're not reducing health care we're not reducing health care we're not reducing health care savings in the cost any other questions on the general fund alright so next we have our enterprise funds starting with the water and sewer budget water and sewer budget is the revenues are $160 million $167 the actual total water and sewer budget is $161 million but those are the actual revenues for operating revenues and it does include a rate adjustment of 9.76% in terms of our department budgets 71% of the budget is for our utility operations that includes our water and wastewater crews that includes our plan operations both water plants both wastewater treatment plants and as well as the activities spent on those services outside of our department budgets the next at largest item would be for debt service which is 22% so out of the total budget 58% is for our utility operations our total department operations and the next would be debt service on the bonds for the water and sewer and the capital improvement program again the budget is proposed $161.9 million as the increase of 9 million or 6% over the current year does reflect a rate adjustment of 9.7% it maintains the capital improvement program for water and sewer as $120 million that includes $21.5 million that would be funded from cash out of this budget the remainder would be coming from bond proceeds the program $80 million is programed for wastewater improvements and $40 million is programed for water improvements what's left on the water improvements what's left? yeah from the descent decree you mean the waste water yeah could know water water was $150 million and the balance of it was waste from the descent decree to get out of our consent decree so the latest projection we've got the $750 million figure that was ballparked when we got into it is about where consent decree driven that's where we're projecting to end up now we're making other investments as we need to above and we have to consent decree requirements are so I don't have the figure of how much is left that outlook over the 10-year projection is looking like it's going to be in the ballpark relatively correct we're about to embark on a fairly aggressive even more aggressive program of capital improvements in our collection system that's where our next big spend is going to be we're in construction with some big projects at the wastewater treatment plant digester upgrades, stream and aeration yes permit compliance type but a lot of our major assets we have done the condition assessment and inventory we're developing that list of priorities we're going to be rolling those projects out in our early cost estimate for those that have been moving forward is over the next 5 years $80 million a year on the wastewater side and then reducing down I think we showed that last time reducing that down a little bit moving on to our stormwater program the stormwater budget of course the revenues from the stormwater system are funded from the stormwater fee the expenditure for that public works makes up 30% of the budget engineering is 22% we now have in this budget debt service and reserve since the new program to invest in the capital improvement program of $93 million over the next several years engineering is 100% based on our stormwater plan 22% 22% of the department the engineering department 22% on the budget funds is the engineering department staff is the program from the engineering budget that includes our engineering department that houses our stormwater compliance our MS4 compliance program so that stormwater group that stormwater group houses the budget for stormwater is 13.4 million an increase of 836 or 6.6% over the current year the capital improvement program for this year is 10.3 million with a total projected CIP of 93 million over the next 3 to 5 years as you are aware the stormwater program manager was contracted for in March and the bottom ordinance was approved in April of 50 million so this program is helping to fund that program moving forward the stormwater fee that was adopted last year will increase 74 cents per ERU which is the equivalent residential unit so the rate will go from 1180 per month to $12.50 per month that's for typical residential unit of course commercial is ERU based on their and pervious area next is our parking fund budget total parking fund budget majority of those revenues come in from street meters actually garages a lot makes up 39% and then our street meters makes up 34% and then non-moving violations are 25% of that budget expenditure wise it's split about 37% for parking services and 30% is debt service and then parking facilities 10% of that budget the total budget is $8.6 million which is an increase of $684,000 or 9% of the current year budget revenues from parking garage and lots of course make up the majority there will be included some scheduled paintings of the garages and garages as well as continued improvements in customer service and continue to partner with our economic development areas to attract businesses to down time next we have our special revenues starting with our hospitality tax budget hospitality tax is proposed at $12.1 million which is an increase of approximately $557,000 or 4.8% over the current year revenue projections are in line with current year projections so we are feeling pretty confident about that 4.8% increase proposed for next year the budget that is given to you right now the current amounts by each of those different categories of the amount that is funded for the hospitality tax committee the amount to the line item agencies and then the amount to previously previously approved allocations from city council we have not made any indications about how much you may want to move around within that budget for those areas other than of course debt service and then the transfer to the general fund of $3.7 million and then some of those allocations are already pre-approved they were approved by council earlier but at this point it's just matter of the budget allocation with regards to how we actually disperse those funds or how you actually want to disperse those funds many recommendations are we having a follow-up discussion about age tax we are but it won't be before you let me answer that question let's don't have it this afternoon some of these and it's just simple autos but I think before we move forward I know there's a push to try to do but I think we really got to decide on how this money is spent what those groups I've looked through and highlighted some that are questionable and that we've paid most of the 990s aren't up today and we're allowing them to get money we've got to change the system well Deedee's been working really hard through the committee process and as she worked through that I think she found even more recommendations so I was trying to give her time to get through that but all the recommendations together would have a work session on it so timing wise obviously some of the bigger discussions around these line items agencies you know they're all going to be lined up here January, July 2nd looking for a check would your preference be to have the discussion on 19 during the work session suits me I mean I'm going to ask for some more stuff because I just think as we have this discussion we've got to decide what the guidelines are because it seems to be a little loose you know and if we're going to make changes I think Howard has some suggestions if he would like to implement you know I think we've also got to decide I mean is this become the clean and safety fund you know or is it become you know we pushing to grow the accountability that we're holding people to not just on the reimbursable but deliveries I mean they're supposed to help increase the pot and the reason the pot's increasing now is because we're having more restaurants than it is I guess my question for you all then just for the sake of direction we can pull together the presentations of the three night work sessions and then we're about to talk about the summer calendar but you can either put them on or the evening meetings many recommendations if you're trying to do that that quickly or we get to I was going to push your work session on HPEC more into the August time frame and just let you make your recommendations how do we do that for funding because they all look for funding I mean once July comes I wasn't necessarily going to assume you were going to factor in any changes for this round of approvals I think we have to discuss if you're talking about discussing it before you approve the I'm not in a vote for the age tax away by just funding a group that we haven't really set out some guidelines on you're a leadership you've been sitting with what about what about the outline of the recommended structure that we've discussed the Whitehead plan the recommend has different opinions of that and I think we need to have a work session to let us debate where the council wants to fill in well between the two of you I would I'd like for us to do that a little sooner than later because we're approaching the point where dollars are going to be recommended or divvied out on both sides some of those concerns I still have and I would be interested in seeing which again entities honestly getting what they requested and those that are requesting and getting nothing I think the council needs to there's a difference of opinion on the administration of the age tax and we probably need to have a work session right and so my only question was do you have that work session before you vote on the committee recommendations that are before about to be before you make your way through the committee recommendations that are about to be before you so that they are not held up until August time frame and then have your work session in August I think everybody wants to have them before we grant so if that's the case then we're looking at probably the next council meeting realistically because we're about to talk about your summer schedule where you're not meeting it but you don't want to okay well I'm going to need a little guidance then on how you want to handle that so if you want to meet and if you want to have your work session on age tax perhaps you could have that as your work session in July for your committee recommendations I know that a lot of people don't want to meet in July but if we can get more people together and have a meeting that maybe does a consent agenda and whatever routine things that we can do that night just to meet the requirements of the law I'm sure there's four of us on being there I've got a lot of different feedback on that as far as your schedule's go so that's next on your agenda so I don't want to jump ahead but I guess if you want us to go for it with your work session item we can squeeze it into the June 5th work session the June 5th work session's gotten pretty tight but I can maybe move something off into the chat I'll be fine in there well let's don't do it when you phone me then you need to be sitting at the table for that for the day I'm out I'm about the 19th I'm here the 19th I'm here the level I'm just out the fifth I'm about the 19th and that's fine I thought what I was hearing is that you wanted to vote on the recommendations too so is it realistic to think you would work through your discussion of guidelines and all that during a work session and then vote on the spreadsheet that evening if it was important why we couldn't I mean I think part of the questions I have maybe is them internal you know how do we approve $1,400 worth of gift cards on a reimbursable to me I don't understand how that happened you know how how are we dishing out this money and I think we need to have that conversation it would be really ambitious I mean grind it out if you want it next week it'd be nice to have contracts not before us on the part of July or August like it has been passed and it's been done and that's a certainty if it's going to grind it out I'm not sure how it would be done if Daniel may not be in the room it also may just require some articulation of what the rules might be and then we'll make sure that's the enforcement of it meeting like the base meeting where we'll just have a work session in the afternoon and Daniel's going to be around I will tell you June to lie both very difficult for me and most people it is and I'll say it's impossible but as far as recent years I mean I don't mind being on the fun that doesn't bother me I think we can just screw it if y'all have the all the don't dedicate the time on the 19 we've got to create a clear line of how this money's supposed to be spent and what we would expect of it from people and that's not necessarily going to impact your decision making on the committee recommendations may not at all but it may I don't know but your guidelines that you talk about that you do it on the 19 but I think it's important that we don't give any committee money out if their paperwork's not up to date you can't be two years behind on the 19 not when you're getting June 19 I don't know what that's our radio I'm in two hours early you definitely can do it I guess I was trying to make sure I wasn't understanding you to say that based off whatever guidelines you come up with in the work session we would need to have been gone through the committee back up material to see if those decisions the recommendations are impacted by if you're saying someone has done that we're not going to literally have the time to have gone back and give you the guidance on the committee recommendations I think it could be clear because then it becomes part of our role in the reimbursable we shouldn't be paying for workers' dreams that's the same thing the sales tax people are trying to stand that's not we're not buying mountain dew and water for your workers or toilet paper well that would be the going forward on the reimbursable again if you all recommendations that you normally do and decide whether it's going forward or not I think we could do it the funding is only based on what they actually what they are allocated is different than what they may get reimbursed based on what's submitted if it's eligible we have to agree one way or another because how are the parameters are recommendation is different from that so yes we need to agree on what the parameters are before so is going forward and obviously we always make applicants accordingly based on our decisions we can climb the hill ok so final budget we have for you is the accommodations tax and it's proposed at 2.5 almost 2.6 million it's approximately 369,000 or 16% increase over the current year the accommodations tax of course the majority of the accommodations tax is allocated 30% is allocated for advertising tourism 65% is allocated for tourism related expenditures we've not of course made recommendations specifically how those funds would be expended to the two groups that typically receive those funds as far as the 5% general fund purposes our general purpose funds which you have used previously to find a portion of one Columbia as well as the Together We Can Read program and of course $25,000 is an automatic transfer to the general fund and that's based on the first allocation straight out of the state law any questions about accommodations tax the last item is just mentioning the budget as discussed next week is the budget public hearing first reading and of course our open house where we will have departments presenting information about their services and programs that they provide that will be June the 5th public hearing is scheduled for 6pm the 6pm meeting rather second reading June 19th in which you've just now added additional items for discussion June 19th will be the second and final reading thank you all for your patience and diligence and commitment to this process thank you has Pam got Pam you've got your list of things to review then you might have more a couple things I have was looking at the possibility of removing spouse coverage in the current workforce if they have credit of recovery if they have I think the chief retired chief had a good question about spouse coverage if a spouse has credit of coverage and then for some reason loses credit of coverage can we bring them back right last year we changed last year we changed the start of this yes so starting in 2017 we made a change that we all voted on that would once they go off once they leave here they have to keep the plan that they have and they can go lower but they can't go higher and they have to the people that are on their coverage leave those are the people that they can keep they can't add the reason why we were doing that is because a lot of people were getting married and they were adding people after they were retired some of them adding people because they were sick and they were seriously so we were like you can't just add people kind of willy-nilly so if they had a spouse when they left and they got a new spouse I guess you could switch your spouses that's the reason why we made that change I mean if y'all want to change it again they can I think the question comes down to if the spouse leaves and let's say in five years she's worked somewhere she's had insurance for them they don't she doesn't have any she gets laid off let's say she works at a big utility that goes out in the middle let's say everything really honestly because it gets down to eligibility rules and everybody's there's always a circumstance I deal with it every single day of my life somebody's got some circumstance that we have to be careful that we do something consistently what would be our general rule on that that you can't come back on when you all made the change in 2017 it was that whatever coverage level they left with they could go lower but they couldn't go higher and that they could not add any additional dependence after they left so hypothetically anything can happen I mean I'd love to create a rule for everybody but it gets to where we have to kind of manage this whole thing well the big one for me would be to see what impact removing spouse coverage from the existing it's interesting there's several sidebars that have it and it's usually precipitates a pretty easy back and forth between Mr. DeVallum and Mr. Bind they're talking about stuff I appreciate it, first of all I appreciate the work that's been done with our consultants and I appreciate the discussions that the Council has had and also sales I really appreciate the input of our employees and retirees I found it gratifying and passionate but still helpful and better that all the situations that were brought up to us we contemplated in our own discussions as well having a well rounded discussion but we do need to spend a lot of time looking at the consistently evolving nature of healthcare coverage constantly shifting sands of exactly how you provide long term benefits to your employees and again continue to refocus our efforts on our employees and our retirees let's look at the entire package but obviously our long term responsibility rests with the people many of them will be working those things every day and it's not on us to ask a spouse if you have optional coverage somewhere else to use that coverage as opposed to our coverage it's that we have been supplementing a spouse to almost a level of what we supplement an employee and that's part of what's not sustainable and had you know a gentleman who spoke earlier his wife has been able to do that for 40 years if we had all of that funding back in we may not be having this stuff to think about but our obligation is to them not to and I think the process that we've gone through has shown that that's our focus thank you any other items that we'll call from the discussion that we need to research I think you put it all up there I need to make sure that my list is right the other items that I noted some clarifications are conditions and disability the retirement if the account can carry over the funds the faster the decision we have let's look at the numbers and maybe yes they can carry over maybe for a period of time maybe year to year whatever happens to be I think there ought to be some ability that heads that liability if I'm not sick this year but I'm sick next year but not in perpetuity was the consensus regarding post 65 coverage to move forward with the HR account for that group and to keep the DDD for the post 65 we would look at the HR it's still a DDD the HR you have to draw the line we can't provide benefits for the future at this point new new hires would not have that opportunity 365 365 365 may turn post 65 post 65 that's what we're asking but those are the questions we have to answer when council is here not everybody is here that's a discussion point the population we talked about now we're saying post 65 would continue for existing entirely in the plant obviously new enrollment dropped currently in the plant yep those HRAs correct that's my understanding what about the age requirement I'm sorry the age requirement the 55 is that something you guys want to know that just reflects I mean can I marry that up to state law rule 90 right no it's not as aggressive 55 55 35 that's the rule in 90 55 35 would be the rule in 90 we have a I mean we have several folks in the tire that was just a thought that I do see the you know there's going to be some anxiety with that one at an age for folks that we're basically saying I'm just going to honor the if you were here prior to 2009 but then we're adding another caveat on top of it I mean back then when we said that you would get retiree insurance to the city prior to 2009 there was no age requirement attached to it it's just if you aged 20 years then you would get it as long as it was available I mean you were retirement eligible as well you had to be retirement eligible yes but any of this it didn't make any sense to me that we would make lifetime obligations of someone at 39 years old no they would have to be retirement eligible but there are some people there are some people there are some people who are really young when they're retirement eligible but that goes back to the question is if they can get credible insurance from their other thing because I mean in today's world nobody's going to retire at 47 and never are working out of that how do I work there's no way to be working till I'm 88 that was her example and I want to have the opportunity to get insurance you don't get it but you don't have it that's what all of us that goes without saying everything we're talking about but I think we're adding on the age requirement that them wasn't there wasn't an age requirement I was just trying to explain to y'all why how much of that population how much of that population that we guess falls into that number of those who were here between 29 would not be retirement eligible by state standards but would also still potentially exceed the 20 year professional yeah I don't know see I mean we can look at what coverage we can look at the time bucket of a bucket right and we can look at the time people have with us but we may not capture all of their other eligibility because they could have worked for a state agency they could have worked anywhere else people meet eligibility at different points at so many different points everybody's situation is different may have changed before so they get ready to retire somebody's not exactly exactly if I had been here the day before always but I guess what the council is asking though is it enough of a I mean is it is savings going to be that much of a deal I mean because it wasn't a requirement it wasn't before 2009 so if we add that on what are we accomplishing by doing that for future for future by changing it to 255 had us change did he bump up one of the options was just bumping in about two years as well so there's a dollar amount to that I can tell you but he did that before we went back and changed and added the 2009 I mean the age thing was we came up with this age thing was before the 2008 because we had already Eric had already one of the one of the options 3B 2 3 and 3B added the age requirement and it added an additional two years of eligibility requirement which we didn't add that so if you had to have 25 years you'd have to have 27 if you had to have 28 you'd have to have 30 and we didn't add that plus the age what do we do with that if they were to maintain the path of staying on the food insurance covered under our claim and their premiums really got lost of course that fluctuates so that's really what we're looking at what we're trying to figure out now in terms of how we can calculate it all working with them what we have is to be easy because in that kind of when they want to pay the claim what we're assuming is just all amount is just all amount what will fluctuate is the number of people paying that claim so if it any given year there was a rejection from Eric's number going on but there may be another year there's a spike in the number of retirees in the country but right now what's giving us the savings in the HRA getting the disease at that dollar not being rejected I guess that's all I'm saying is it doesn't make that much of a difference being that he had factored that in and then we went back and tweaked instead but in the whole pre-2009 things we haven't gotten back any numbers from him on the 2009 and it might not but you know the age and the age and the years of service make a difference for how long a person stays on the plane so if they are 40 they're going to stay on it longer than they will if they're 55 so that was the whole point of that to the actuarial and y'all have stated in the presentation and the BBBs are bound to be I think we need to get all of it on the table we don't even know what the numbers are it might be a matter of if you look at the combined numbers that number is the same as the average are we going to have the thousands now but it's still the same one person will get more and one person will get less if you keep the same amount my question is my overall question goes to why are we supplementing a spouse they didn't work for the city and in this scenario what you showed in numbers is is that we're supplementing close to 75% of their thing and to me our obligation is to the person who worked here if they want to have coverage there's a cost to that coverage and that's what it is and we had this discussion in 2008 and everybody was like no no no but the reality is had we just done that formula then we wouldn't be having this healthcare discussion this is one of the gentlemen I talked to before the city plan for 60 years and we've been supplementing that and that's what I don't think is fair because it actually really hurts the employees because the employees now and into the future the ones I mean $800 a month that's $10 grand a year so we have that look at calculating just in the DDD so anyway I think collectively we all want the same thing making sure that we can take care of the employees I was just going to say I think what Daniel was saying is really the same as the surcharge I think the question is what they are of the surcharge I think there's a difference between saying you're not going to allow spouses to be covered at all or saying okay yes you need coverage but there's a cost and then the employee itself can figure out whether or not that cost makes more sense with the city or or something else I think that's the difference $100 a month sounds a little low and I think there will probably be a lot of people who will be willing to pay more than that the question is what is the right amount what I was saying really was is that your spouse can get insurance but whatever the cost is it is the cost we're supplementing that right now and we shouldn't be we should hand in some employers do that they charge the whole it costs $1,000 that's what it is that's what they pay what direction do you all need in order to run numbers for next week are we running numbers on the employee the spousal coverage whatever it is are we taking no spousal coverage or are we doing the surcharge well you can't you can't do that well you have no supplement that's what we're looking at that's what I'm asking we could not do any spousal coverage I mean not offer it that's an option too well they didn't have credible coverage we'd have to offer it to them at the full price we don't have to subsidize but we could offer it to them at the full price or well there are some places though that you don't have to offer I think we ought to I think we just got to look at all the numbers because at the end of the day the reason we're here is to try to figure out a plan that gets us a sustainable plan for the employees from now on it doesn't matter because the budget would go down not up as long as the top line number doesn't change it doesn't matter a lot of the other stuff the L&D camp the 365 and 065 retirees the spouse all the time after the population actions all these are retirees it's eligible for anybody that's retired as of January the 1st of 19 is eligible for pre and post did they get a hover anybody that's retired as of January the 1st is eligible pre and post January 1st 19 retire or retirement it's really December 31st pre and post December 31st 2018 we didn't talk about both retired and retired eligible they may choose to still work they'll work they'll work well I can't be because she was in 2008 yes we still have a year mr. bond mr. bond okay her issue with the age of 55 that was a little later Yeah, we can post the thrill first how we gonna make that decision if we don't know what the numbers are and what that affects in long-term thing I mean no offense but I mean you're asking me why I thought we hit well my idea was I thought we were going to get them that was my understanding of why we wrote down all these little stuff that maybe I'm misunderstood we probably why don't we well why don't we kind of think about this study this is a little more until I'm gonna make a decision I want to be able to say I'm making this decision because of this if I just make a decision on a motion I'll be able to ballpark it they've had enough information from come up with a lot of wrecking invention we sat in this room and we were able to do it with tower watches that they're moving that needle around they know what our basis is if you make changes what does that look like see I thought the I thought the needle was always set at 2009 that's what I've been basing off of everything that we had here because if you looked at our population based on that really there's only about 700 people we fit that category everybody else is all way under and then then reality has been 25 years 30 years or whatever we use in current numbers are we at the 80 20 I'm going to be able to potentially, for the estimate, it will be about 10 percent more. So we're still going to see some increase in the cost system. But you're assuming there's nobody going to come out. Well, if you act in the actuarial, they'll tell you they have acted that in. Right. But we see, realistically, that it doesn't respond. So this is the break up they gave us in the last presentation, but again, see, that's assuming the full population. Y'all have already capped off some of the population by drawing the line. This is not. See, I thought that's what we were using as our basis for all of it. That was a new point. If you were in before 2009. Well, they were basically, in a lot of ways, anybody retired as a decentralized person? Actually, the tire system, whether it's active, retired, or retired already retired? And I'm just making this up. Didn't we have this conversation about that population? I mean, what I have in my notes was it around 700 people. It would stay in the system. We add back to the integrated option 1D. 1D.76. Right. Yeah. What's changing now is discussions about how the balsam to be acted. Should that balsam to be acted? Should that balsam to be the tire system? Should we stay within that total dollar amount? Or do we reduce the CDB? We'll have to lose a form, y'all. Any other questions you have to staff? There was an indecent assessment item. We need to add rain to it. We're losing a form, though, I guess. We need to have it. Yes. Well, I don't think it accounts for. But anyway, all necessary. And then the summer schedule at the meeting. It's a statutory issue. Mr. Duvall was right. Look at that. I'll leave the room. I like the summer schedule. I won't be sent to jail. Not for this anyway. I like the summer schedule. Who's going to tell? Let's let's let's let's let's let's approve the summer schedule with a review of the issue. The second. We don't need to. All right. Okay. We don't. We like it. Okay. The movie adjourned. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Say hi, Howard. We adjourned. We adjourned. All right. Move to the second. Second. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thank you all. Thank you all.