Actions speak loudest
October 15, 2013
State Trooper remembered as a hero
October 15, 2013Lafourche Parish Government will absorb nearly a half a million dollars in increases next year to health-insurance premiums, marking 11 consecutive years employee contribution rates have remained steady, Human Resources Director Savonyé Anderson said last week.
Three hundred sixty-nine employees are enrolled in the parish’s health insurance program, administered in four plans by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana. According to figures provided by Anderson, the parish will pick up the tab of $504,000 in 2014 rate increases.
Anderson attributed the hikes to implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
“One thing to be clear on is that the new law does not require the parish to absorb the entirety of the increase of healthcare coverage,” Anderson said via email. “However, this was something that (Parish President Charlotte) Randolph decided to do in order to keep the employees’ premiums from increasing and maintain attractive benefits for the parish.”
Enrollment under the new law, dubbed Obamacare, began Oct. 1. Parish employees are, like all Louisiana residents, free to shop for health insurance through a statewide marketplace managed by the federal government. Because Lafourche Parish Government offers “affordable” insurance as demarcated by the new law, its employees are not eligible for federal subsidies.
In total, the parish’s insurance plan will cost $4.6 million, a 12.3-percent jump from last year; the employer share is $4.4 million.
In Randolph’s proposed 2014 budget, money has been appropriated to give all parish employees at least a 4-percent pay raise. Salaries and benefits are projected at $6.6 million of the parish’s $9.1 million general fund budget for next year. That is 32.8 percent more appropriated for wages and benefits than the $5 million spent in 2011.
“While we can’t pay people as much as we’d like to and as much as they deserve, we can at least take care of this quality-of-life issue for them,” Randolph said. “We’re looking at retention, and certainly the way to keep the talented people we have is to make sure they’re paid as much as they can with all the associated benefits.”
Much of the general fund’s revenue is comprised of dedicated property- and sales-tax collections, though the proposed 2014 budget includes an infusion of $1 million in oil-and-gas royalty revenue, which the parish is free to spend as it sees fit.
The parish council is scheduled to vote on the budget and expected amendments next month.
Lafourche pays at least 91 percent of the cost for each of the four health insurance plans it offers.
Employees enrolled in single coverage pay $135, or 1.7 percent, toward premiums over the course of the year, compared to $7,675 that parish government contributes. This is the parish’s most popular plan, with 217 enrollees.
Annual employee premium contributions are $1,205 for employee plus children (7 percent), $1,362 for employee plus spouse (8.1 percent) and $2,305 for family coverage (4.9 percent).
Terrebonne Parish Consolidated Government, meanwhile, is in the first year of a three-year process to phase in increased employee contribution rates by 2015. The share, formerly at 85-15, will begin that year at 80-20.
