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HOWLAND – The township’s administrator said officials are trying to stay on top of insurance costs in the future as trustees secured insurance for 2027.
Trustees at Wednesday’s meeting approved renewing the township’s policy with Crumdale Specialty-People’s Insurance for the township’s health, dental and vision coverage, effective Oct. 1.
The renewal comes with a 14.9% increase to the policy’s cost. Administrator James Pantalone noted the national standard increase was a bit higher than 14.9%.
“The benefit package will remain the same, the collective bargaining agreements, which were passed this year, several months ago – we’ll be seeing increased contributions from each employee,” Pantalone said.
Pantalone said healthcare is a “disaster” for everyone right now, adding that the initially proposed increase was 61% and reiterating his pleasure with the 14.9% trustees approved.
“With going to the table, beating them up pretty hard, looking at what’s going on – we made a few tweaks with the deductible items within the plan,” Pantalone said. “And made some changes with our aggregate over all of our employees, so we stabilized our fixed cost.”
Trustee James LaPolla commended Pantalone and his committee for negotiating and reviewing the ins and outs.
“We bring more and more people into our negotiations, so a lot of people don’t understand going to the doctor for small things, as our costs,” LaPolla said. “Getting prescriptions outside of the preferred pharmacy costs us more money, so as we educate our employees about trying to stay within the system, it saves us money.”
Pantalone said he and the committee will initiate a 12-month plan, with regards to preparing for next year’s insurance renewal.
“Healthcare, once again, is not getting easier for anybody; we realize it’s not just a 90-day, time to go at it at the renewal time, which is the standard,” Pantalone said. “We’re trying to get a 12-month program put together with the committee to really stay on top of it. It’s a daunting task.”