Insurance questions lead to testy fiscal court meeting

Sep. 12—A decision made at the last meeting of the Pulaski County Fiscal Court regarding county employee insurance came back to cause a stir at Tuesday's gathering of the magistrates.

After what has been a breezy and controversy-free meeting to that point, citizen David Sparks stepped up to the mic for the "citizens' comments" portion of this week's Fiscal Court meeting and expressed his concerns over the immediacy with which some magistrates opted to retain the services of current insurance agent Bill Neikirk and his firm Neikirk Insurance, rather than look around for all possible options.

On August 22, magistrates ultimately decided to continue using the county's current agency, Neikirk Insurance, but the original plan put forward by Todd was to advertise for bids to see what other insurance options were available to the county.

The motion to advertise for bids was made by Magistrate Mark Ranshaw, but when no other magistrate seconded it, Todd himself put forward the second.

Todd noted that the current agency had worked with the county for a long time and done a good job, "But we'd like to make sure our pricing is correct."

Ranshaw agreed, saying, "Competition is always good, plus we have a lot of employees here that are looking for family plans."

He noted that several employees had declined county insurance because of the lack of a family plan.

However, when it came time for a vote, Ranshaw was the only one in favor of putting it out for bids.

County Attorney Martin Hatfield told magistrates that another option was to authorize the judge-executive to negotiate with their current vendor, which led magistrate Mike Wilson to make the motion to stay with Neikirk, with Jimmy Wheeldon making the second to that effect.

That motion passed 3-2. Ranshaw voted "No" because, "I want additional vendors looking at it." Alternately, magistrate Jason Turpen voted against it, "Just because we haven't seen a plan (from Bill Neikirk) yet. I think we need to have a plan presented."

Flash forward to the Tuesday, September 12 meeting, and Sparks asked the magistrates who voted to move forward to Neikirk why they did what they did without putting it open to bids from other parties.

"I just watched you vote to bid on cleaning supplies and pest control, but you refuse to vote to bid on ... health insurance," said Sparks, referencing an earlier agenda item from the meeting to choose one pest control provider instead of using multiple ones. "The county, for those who don't know, is currently paying $3.1 million for health insurance. Correct me if I'm wrong ... but I believe it's a $500 deductible and $2,000 out of pocket, am I correct on that? I received a quote from one of the local carriers — it was a zero deductible, for $1.6 million. ... That's a huge difference."

Wheeldon and Wilson both addressed Sparks and said variations of the same thing: They were familiar with Neikirk and comfortable with the service his firm offers the county.

"I've been a magistrate for nine years; we've had this insurance, I understand, for about 20 years," said Wheeldon. "We've always had good service. They do any paperwork that needs to be taken care of, and we know what kind of insurance we're getting when we deal with (Neikirk). ... Jumping around's not a real good deal, I don't think."

Said Wilson, "You've got a man that, he takes care of us. And if you've got a question, you go over there — I don't care if it's the county judge down to your janitor downstairs, he's got you taken care of."

But Wilson hit on another point when he observed that there are only "two companies to go through" — leading to what County Attorney Martin Hatfield identified as a bit of a misunderstanding in the argument. He and magistrate Mike Strunk pointed out that there are only two large insurance carriers in the area that would handle public accounts like Pulaski County government — identified by Strunk as UnitedHealthCare and Blue Cross Blue Shield — and regardless of what agent they chose, those same companies would have to be dealt with. So the bigger question of cost comes from the carriers rather than the choice of agent, such as Neikirk, they argued.

"It's the agent that the court approved; they haven't approved an insurance carrier yet," said Hatfield. "... Humana, which the court (gets) insurance through now, as I understand it is pulling out of public entity insurance in Kentucky. So that's no longer an option. So there are only two entities, the two Mr. Strunk mentioned, that are available to insure public employees in Pulaski County. No matter who an agent is, that agent is going to have to go through those same carriers to procure insurance.

"You can change agents, but the pricing, I would suspect, is going to be the same, and it's going to come down to service from an agent," he continued. "I'm not saying there aren't other agents out there that could provide a good service ... but the magistrates are correct when they say there there's two companies that will provide health insurance for Pulaski County government."

Wheeldon added that Neikirk has been working with those companies to get the lowest price for the same type of insurance the county has; "We could change different kinds of insurance, and we're even looking into that a little bit," he said, "to see if there's maybe a family plan that some of the employees want to pick up, and if they do, that's fine. We're still having meetings on that but we're working through (Neikirk)."

Said Strunk, "We want to keep our agent. We're not keeping the same insurance, because we can't keep the same insurance we've got now, but we are going to keep the same agent."

Hatfield suggested that Sparks share any relevant insurance information with Wheeldon or Turpen, who are on a committee to work on county insurance coverage.

Ranshaw then spoke up and said he still wants to look at what KACo (the Kentucky Association of Counties) might offer insurance-wise, or another entity.

"Are we saying that even (KACo) can only go with the same two health insurance companies that are out there? And then why can't we see the bids from both these companies that Mr. Neikirk is using?" said Ranshaw, who expressed great reservations about the affordability of the family plan currently available. "I would ask the gentlemen to reconsider having at least one other agency like KACo which does this countywide; they have multiple, multiple counties, government agencies, that fall under them them for their health care. There's something there that all these other government agencies trust KACo to come up with a plan to help them save the county money."

From there, the discussion turned into a heated back-and-forth. Hatfield told Ranshaw that if he knows of potential insurance options with KACo, he should present that information to the insurance committee. Ranshaw responded, "Everybody knows about KACo."

After a bit of talking over each other, Ranshaw made his case for KACo again ("We all know about KACo insurance. Everyone in this room knows about KACo insurance. We have our liabilities through KACo insurance right now. Why can't we pursue having them take a look at our health care too?") and Hatfield asked how many counties have their insurance through KACo. Ranshaw said, "I can find that out," and Hatfield responded, "You just said everybody knows." Another back-and-forth unfolded in which Ranshaw accused Hatfield of "mixing" his words and Hatfield said, "Nope, I'm not. They're your words."

Hatfield again recommended Ranshaw present his KACo suggestion to the magistrates on the insurance committee, and he responded that they know about KACo and he doesn't know "why they're not pursuing it." Hatfield also said he didn't think anyone would object to Ranshaw's preferences, but told him, "Don't just throw out broad assertions when you don't have anything to back those up."

"Are you saying that we don't know about KACo?" responded Ranshaw, and Hatfield said, "I'm asking you what you know about KACo and their health insurance." Said Ranshaw, "They have an insurance program that helps counties that we should be looking into." Wheeldon chimed in and observed that they were "debating a subject that we've already voted on."

Todd chimed in, saying that the committee is meeting with Neikirk on a regular basis, with a request to get the price of insurance as low as possible for the county "because I have advised him, I think it's too high. ... I know there's a cheaper way to go. We are looking at ... some other option to get the price down, and I will not be easy to deal with if we don't get the price where I think it can be because I've looked at other agencies. There are cheaper prices out (there). But I do not want to hurt the employees. The employees of the county are my first (priority). We must take care of them. ... I will fight for them, but I think we can do the same policy at a cheaper rate, and I've advised Mr. Neikirk of the same. That's what we're trying to proceed with now in an insurance committee."

Treasurer Crissa Morris said that KACo "has been approached" and she isn't sure if Neikirk has information from them yet or not but that he was planning to reach out to that organization. Also, "you can still keep the same agent, they would just be the agent of record on the KACo policy," she said.

Ranshaw said he wants to see a copy of all bids before he votes on anything, whoever the agent is. Todd said a plan would be presented before they vote. "We'll just have to look at that in detail and see what we've got."

In other fiscal court business:

—The magistrates, Todd and Hatfield went into executive session for a period. When they came back out, Todd recommended Pulaski County Park Manager Kim Norfleet would be dismissed from employment "for violating a county policy." The court voted to do just that.

—In recognition of first responders with the most recent anniversary of September 11, 2001 having just passed, former Pulaski County Public Safety Director Tiger Robinson was presented a quilt patterned with a firefighter design made by Cloa Hardy.

—Todd read into the minutes that a notice to proceed was issued for work at the Pulaski County Foothills Academy Living Center located at 100 Wallace Avenue, pursuant to an awarded contract. Foothills Academy is a regional residential program that serves troubled youth. The court gave Todd permission to sign financial draws as a pass-thru agency for state money relating to the project.

—The Pulaski County Extension Office's T.J. Adkins stopped by to let the court know that the district board voted to take the compensating tax rate, which would be effectively a reduction this year, of 1.6 percent on real estate and 1.89 on real and tangible property.

—Emergency Management Director Don Franklin got the court to approve a resolution to submit the emergency operation plan for the 2023-24 fiscal year.

—Speed limits were changed on Piney Grove Road to 25 miles per hour and Gastineau Road to 35 miles per hour.