City of Holyoke Health Benefit Trust Committee Meeting February 24, 2025

City of Holyoke Health Benefit Trust Meeting

February 24, 2025

City Hall, Old Tax Collector’s Office

The meeting was called to order by Chairman Quentin Donohue at 5:01 PM

In attendance: 

PEC Representatives: Joe O’Connor- Retirees, Chris Butler-Fire Dept, Chris Adams- UFCW

City Representatives: Tanya Wdowiak-City Auditor, Sean Mangano- HPS CFO, Dazhana Argueta- Personnel Specialist

Others: Quentin Donohue – Chair, Steve Corbin – Dowd Insurance, Kelly Curran – HR Director, Rebecca Sutter – Dowd, Steve Corbin – Dowd, Joe Manzi-Business Accountant-Water Department, Rory Casey- City Treasurer, Heidi Fountain-BCBS

Agenda:

MOTION: Trustee Joe O’Connor made a motion to receive minutes Trustee Chris Butler seconded the motion. Motion carried unanimously. 

Review and receive minutes from December 4, 2024 and January 11, 2025 meetings

Blue Cross Blue Shield- Heidi Fountain

• Heidi introduced herself and stayed at the meeting to provide input where needed. 

MOTION: Trustee Chris Butler made a motion to discuss the update from Section 19 and upcoming meeting schedule. Chairman Quentin Donohue seconded the motion. Motion carried unanimously. 

Update from Section 19 and upcoming meeting schedule

• Chris Butler provided the following Section 19 meeting dates:
  • March 24th, April 7th at 3pm and every Monday after that Section 19 is meeting at the Fire Department. 

• Kelly Curran, Personnel Director asked Heidi to attend that meeting. 

Water Department

• Quentin invited the Water Department to discuss the bill pay process. Sean explained how there was some discrepancy in turnovers for insurance payments. Kelly Curran added that we need deduction reports and need the Water Department to stop payments directly to BCBS. Sean explained how all funds come in and out of the Trust as so we are in need of the report to match what is being paid. Joe Manzi understands that the check would be payable to the Trust and will provide deduction reports to Rebecca to ensure funds are accounted for. Heidi added that the payments that have currently been received have been credited to the Water dept account. Quentin added that we want to ensure that funds coming in and out are accurate. Steve Corbin notified Joe Manzi that Rebecca Sutter is also available as a resource if needed. Rebecca will gather the credit amount to date for the Water Department. Sean requested that Joe provide a list of checks sent to BCBS as of July of 2024. Rory Casey was asked how he wants the Water Department to send in money. He says we need to bill the Water Department and then the Water Dept provides a check made out to the City of Holyoke.

Broker Update – Steve Corbin, Dowd (Rate recommendation)

• Steve started off by discussing the renewal process. The process will be different now that we are self insured. First we will receive a Renewal for BCBS. The Admin fee can be put in writing to not increase broker fees for the next 5 years. Steve does not believe the City needs it. Steve will provide a Memorandum with this. Heidi mentioned that the 1.5% fee from BCBS is really to keep up with the cost of inflation. Heidi will ask if they would entertain a lower rate but it definitely would not be 0%. Dowd will continue to review claims and projections and any claim data should not be a surprise since this is reviewed monthly. The increase is not 20%. Stop Loss renewal will not be received until late April/early May. Increase is based on a much smaller number than what the rate change is. 
• Quentin asked how often does the number change? Steve said it is dependent on trends. How that impacts overall increase is small. Heidi explained that stop loss is usually give or take 10%
• FY24 dental claims vs what claims were brought in. Ended up with 62k surplus. 
• YTD through January- still running well with about 24k in excess funding. We can talk about where we want dental rate increases to be. 
• Current YTD claims for medical at $8,092,348.96. All RX, medical, specific claims and rebates are included in this amount.  It should be noted that Rx rebates are reduced in the bill instead of going back to the insurance company as it would happen in a fully insured design. Received $373,230.26 in rebates in the first quarter. We will see this every 3 months moving forward. We are currently at a surplus of $1,482,872.78 through December
• Sean asked Sean if here is a percentage we should be shooting for in regards to claims. Steve- the simple formula is we should have 4 months worth. 90% is probably good until we build up that reserve. 
• Medical premium and Enrollment by product of month
• Medex projections- modest increase that the Mayor absorbed.
• High Cost Claims-One person came off the high cost report but there is a new one that has come on. 
• Predicted High Cost- list of employees who are likely to meet 100k in claims
• Steve but last 2 completed yrs and most recent year together for a full 31 months of claim data to projected increase which is 4.17%. Sean asked if this is active medical only. Steve confirmed that is true. 
• Kelly asked that Steve should present to the Council when we get close to budget time. Joe- if stop loss goes up to 20% what would it be then. Steve will run numbers and provide them to the Trust. 
• Example increases of 5% and 7.5%. Steve’s recommendation is 7.5% the lowest. Heidi added that 9-19.9% is the current range with an average of 14%. Trust balance needs to be considered at the end of the year and prior to tax rates being made, we want to ensure that the City does not get charged the difference. In the past in other cities, the city paid and the Trust paid the City back. Tanya will look into whether there is a grace period in the first year. 
• Chris Butler mentioned if we could add a plus one plan. Heidi said all that happens when you offer that tier, you end up increasing the cost for the families. Quentin is not opposed to the idea but believes this is not the year for it. Heidi can give us projections on that. Rory mentioned how that does not stop there as there are different types of plan needs (ex. EE + children, EE and Spouse and so on).Steve will gather the figures on a 9% increase.
• Rory recommended that Trustees look at all offers that BCBS has to offer
• Heidi provided one pager with a program offered to self insured accounts with 100+ members offering meaningful weight loss for GLP. If members want the GLP 1 for weight loss, they participate in the program and meet requirements. If they do not meet them, the member would then be required to pay for the medication at 100%. There is an expense to this program. Heidi asked for it and will provide that saving for GLP1 and weight loss. 
• Joe- 7.5% increase is not normal and believes that it would come back to bite us. Chris B. asked what Steve’s recommendation would be. Steve- we were looking to stay in single digits. He will show us 9% and 12%
• Chris A- how does Section 19 come in. Chris B- we split the rates. Quentin- based on what the city number is.  Trustees get a working rate and then we bring it to the Mayor and then his recommendation to the council.

New Business

• Next meeting March 10th at 5pm to set insurance rates. 

Review Insurance Reimbursement Process

• Dazhana Argueta provided a draft reimbursement policy that was created between herself and Rebecca Sutter to ensure timely and accurate reimbursements to employees and retirees and ensure that the Trust is aware of money coming out of the Trust account. It was explained that retiree insurance reimbursements are no longer being processed in the Holyoke Retirement Board payroll and have seen an increase in delayed processing. Retirees are on a fixed income and so we primarily want to ensure that they are being reimbursed in a timely manner and accurately. To do so, each department must be aware of their responsibility. Dazhana also recommended setting a max amount to be reimbursed without the Trust approval. 

MOTION: Chris Butler made a motion to adopt this policy so long as it is reviewed and approved by the Solicitors office and language adding a max reimbursement of $1000 without Trust approval. Joe O’Connor second. Motion carried unanimously

MOTION: Chris Butler made a motion to adjourn. Trustee Joe O’Connor seconded.  Motion carried unanimously. 

The meeting adjourned at 6:56 PM

• PDF
• 0.1MB

Download