November 15, 2017 at 4:23 p.m.
City Council approves $8.9 million budget, insurance carrier
Finance committee to determine employee share, plan options
City Council approves $8.9 million budget, insurance carrier
"We were successful in getting our budget put together, with new finance director Wendi Bixby and the finance committee, that allows for no cuts and a very small surplus at the end of the year," said city administrator Keith Kost. "From the city staff standpoint and from Wendi's standpoint, we're very happy with it and hope that the council will adopt the levy."
The budget calls for a city mill rate of 10.39081, down .071 from last year, or a tax of $1,039.08 on a $100,000 home. This will raise $5,979315 in property taxes of the total revenue of $8,924,036 which is a decrease of .11 percent from 2017. Expenses for 2018 are projected to come in at $8,902,617, a reduction of .39 percent from last year, resulting in an estimated surplus of $21,418 on Dec. 31, 2018.
The budget shows that the total equalized value of property in the city, minus that which is in tax incremental financing (TIF) districts, rose $1,786,700 to $544,316,800.
When mayor Dick Johns opened the floor for public comment no members of the audience took advantage of the opportunity.
"It's been a good year in regards to that (the budget)," Johns said. "The health insurance came in quite a bit lower than expected."
Alderperson Steve Sauer asked for clarification as to whether there would be a reduction of the city tax bill.
"There is a small reduction," Kost said.
"The only thing that gets confusing is when the taxpayers come to pay their taxes, they'll say 'I thought you lowered the taxes,'" Johns added. "The city lowered it, but you don't know what the school is going to be or Nicolet College, just so you (the public) are aware of that."
On Tuesday, Bixby said that she was awaiting the county's final decision on its levy and the state lottery chargeback total before she could calculate the overall levy rate for city property owners. The School District of Rhinelander approved its $40,073,231 budget, with a mill rate of 11.09 per $1,000 of fair market value, or $1,109 on a house worth $100,000, on Oct. 23. That budget will also have a surplus, though considerably larger at $1,690,578.
Finance, wage and salary committee chair Mark Pelletier agreed that the budget process was relatively easy this year.
"Keith worked well with Wendi on this and the department heads came in with their budgets after that," Pelletier said. "That made things a little easier to deal with, everybody did a great job. Being able to keep the health insurance down really helped save us."
Johns said the department heads, Kost and Bixby put a lot of time and effort into crafting a budget that would be considerate of the taxpayers.
"And the department heads knew their budgets line-by-line and only their needs were requested," Johns said, adding that it helped that there was no increase in insurance premiums as was seen last year.
"The general tax levy of 2017 results in a small decrease in the city's taxes," Johns added. "I'd like to thank the alderpersons and department heads for their dedication and teamwork to make this successful budget."
With no further discussion, the council voted unanimously to adopt the budget.
Next, the council had to choose a health insurance carrier to provide the plan.
Jennifer Cordy, benefit and health insurance advisor with Boyd Financial Services, told the alderpersons that the finance committee examined all of its options this year, including getting quotes from other providers. Some of these quotes were below what Security Health Plan proposed.
"We were able to use the competitive offers and go back to Security Health Plan and get their final offer," Cordy said, adding that the initial rate increase that Security Health Plan proposed was 1.3 percent but they eventually came down to minus 4 percent.
"We are very happy to deliver that to you," Cordy said. "The last direction we received (from the finance committee) was that if we could get another 1 or 2 percent from Security Health Plan, as of last week you would stay with them. That would be our recommendation for this evening."
Cordy said many of the other five companies involved in the process seemed to be matching the offer of Security Health Plan or making competitive first-year offers that may have risen significantly in 2019.
"Last year with Security Health Plan, we had more claims then we had premiums and we had a severe loss ratio. We could have had a higher increase in 2017 at 12.1 percent, but Security Health Plan had only imposed a 9 percent because of our history with them and moving forward that way. We want to keep that pool going forward for 2018," Cordy said.
She added that this was a one-year offer as none of the competing carriers were making any "second year not to exceed" offers this year.
"That was not on the table with any of the carriers," Cordy said.
"I was very happy at 2 percent," Pelletier said. "Then when we got down to 1 percent I was happy, and when it got down to zero and started going minuses, this is just fantastic. This is good for the employees and good for the city of Rhinelander."
The finance committee has talked about increasing the employee share of the premium from the present 10 percent to either 12.5 or 15 percent, at least for the lower deductible plans. However, Cordy said that wasn't what the council was approving at this time.
"My goal is to come back to the Nov. 30 finance committee meeting and do it then and narrow down premium structure," she said, adding that the final decision on plan offerings and employee contribution would be acted on at the Dec. 11 council meeting. All the council was asked to do Monday was approve the carrier and dental insurance through Delta Dental, to which the city does not contribute. There were no changes in that coverage or cost.
A motion was made to approve Security Health Care as the carrier and continue to dental coverage by Delta Dental/ The motion passed unanimously on a role call vote.
Jamie Taylor may be reached via email at [email protected].
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