No Insurance Hike for County Employees

Paulding County employees won’t see a change this year on their insurance rates.

The voted on Tuesday to maintain the current rates, a move that would save the county approximately $42,000 a year.  Commissioners said during their morning work session that they would not approve the original proposal, which included slight increases in employee premiums and likely would have saved the county around $350,000.

"I'm not going to put anything else on the employees when it comes to raising that," Chairman David Austin said. "I think we need to look to other places if we want to save money, not to the employees."

This year, the county is looking at a decrease in its medical insurance rates of 0.8 percent, which equates to $82,000. However, dental rates are increasing by 8 percent, or $40,000. The original proposal called for increases in PPO premiums from $50 to $75 for single employees and $150 to $180 for those with family plans. County officials credit the decrease in medical insurance rates to the move of some employees from PPO plans to HRA plans.

In other business, the BOC:

• Voted to renew the County-wide Shoulder Maintenance Project for FY2012 with Clear River Construction Company. This is the county’s annual mowing contract with a cost of $425,011.14. This is the same amount as the FY 2011 contract, which included a 4 percent increase. County officials said that Clear River opted not to add an increase onto this year’s contract;
• Voted to purchase 16 Chevy Caprices and 3 Ford Explorers from Hardy Chevrolet and Family Ford at a total cost of $73,861. One Explorer will be used by the , and the other vehicles will replace vehicles used by the ;
• And, voted to approve an off premises consumption of malt beverage and wine license for Kwik Spot on Villa Rica Highway in Dallas.

Three BOC members attended a county staff meeting on March 5 to discuss damage from the on March 2 and to declare a state of emergency in Paulding County. Austin said that while it wasn’t a BOC meeting, it had to be advertised since three commissioners were present. No action was taken.