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Okay folks. Today I acquired a few hundred pages of county budget to read. Some of this stuff I am familiar with. Some I am not. Many parts of it are so detached from reality that they can only be comprehended if other things are known.
So on this topic I am inviting research participation. Might be an interesting community cyber project. It it gets too multifaceted I may provide a separate forum for budget analysis. But not yet. If it spirals out of control I will shut it down.
Here's the rules: No arguing. No ranting or grandstanding or trolling. I am warning in advance I will delete extraneous distractions without comment. Q's & A's only.
Here's a fact from the proposed 2010/2011 budget:
Employee Health Plans appropriation is $42,016,380.00
Questions:
How many CoH employees does this cover exactly?
What is the average cost per employee for Health Plans?
Bob. Help me out. I'm going to continue with my highlighter...
Assume the best and ask questions.
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How much covers those funded but vacant positions?
So I guess a logical followup might be how much in current budget is for the vacant positions under this item?
David
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Good question. Are the vacant positions covered by health plans?
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Is the budget available on line?
Jerry
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Assume the best and ask questions.
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Is there a narrative or description of the line items? Kinda goes back to Rob's original posting, a line item with a $$$ attached have little to no meaning without definition.
They have to exist in some fashion, but where?
David
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Does that money actually pay for a health plan for the County employees or is the County self-insured, with a real insurance company simply providing the claims administration with the "premium" then being an estimate based upon the prior years' actual costs?
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Don't know yet. All I've seen is a line item for Health Plans for $42 million. I would seem that $42 million would provide a heck of a lot of health care.
I found this Point of Contact on the CoH web site:
ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES
DIVISION HEAD Dee Ann Sadayasu - #961-8361
DUTIES Promotes employees’ awareness of available benefits by coordinating employee benefit plans, including employees’ retirement, health benefits, deferred compensation, and flexible spending plans. Other responsibilities include administration of the County’s Incentive & Service Awards Program, Leave Sharing Program, compensation standards and procedures, and personnel records.
Also on the CoH web site was mention that the CoH Workers Compensation is a self insured set up. I recall seeing a line item in the budget for approx. $2 million.
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I don't know if this is applicable here in this County or not, but the overall budgeted amount of 42 million may also cover the legacy commitments they have. If the retirees are covered as we were when my husband retired from SD County, the current staffing is probably far less costly than the legacy commitments. Off to look over the budget. Thanks for the link.
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Yeah, I was wondering about retirement. Also curious as to who writes the policies.
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