New all-time-high in City employee benefit costs. For February 2020 (page 90), the grand total for health care, retirement, life insurance, dental and vision for City employees totaled $272,833 – or an annual rate of $3.274 million
Same period last year (page 34) the total was $218,404 – or an annual rate of $2.62 million.
Some highlights:
The cost for Colonial Life and Accident rose 22% (check #147288 versus check #155160).
A BRAND NEW benefit through “The Guardian Life Insurance Company” is now listed at nearly $6,000 per month (check #155194).
The combo of “Scott and White Health Plan” and “Texas Municipal Retirement System” increased from $213,741 PER MONTH up to $261,196 PER MONTH.
This is the stuff Spinley and the Goldfish never bring up. They talk non-stop about SALARIES and how “we need to be competitive to keep people here” (never mind the City is LITTERED with employees who have been around for DECADES – which kind of destroys that argument). But never a peep about the rapid rise in BENEFITS.
Also, back in 2014, City council decided to pay for 50% of employee dependents health care – up from 25%. They also decided to pay for the premiums of RETIREES! Yes, they people who had been there decades and already received large piles of money would also then get their premiums paid for by the City after they retired.
To say the benefits of working for the City are generous (especially compared to those of us in the private sector who pay for them) would be a large understatement. But that doesn’t stop Spinley and politicians from clamoring for additional 3 or 4% SALARY raises nearly every year.
The problem is the City employee does not SEE the huge benefits they get. The don’t SEE that it cost the taxpayer, for example, 8% more to provide health care for each of them than it did last year. They then get angry their paycheck hasn’t risen much.
The problem is these benefits are VERY REAL costs to the taxpayer. It is these costs that crush the taxpayer and ruin government finances in the long run.
A very simple solution would be to shift some of this ever-increasing health care cost onto the people who use them: the City employee. Those of us who own small businesses and live in the real world have to deal with these ludicrous price increases every year AND STILL shell out taxes to cover the same for the City employee…many of whom are extremely unappreciative of them and bellyache for a raise as well.
I would be VERY curious to see how the amount of health claims filed by City employees varies year over year. Very curious indeed. After all, there is zero incentive to take care of yourself and every incentive to overuse the “free” health care when you aren’t the one footing the bill