Supervisors Approve New Insurance for County Employees

The Franklin County Board of Supervisors held a special session on Feb. 6 to review and discuss their employee benefits renewal for 2027.

The renewal is set for July 1 of this year though June 30 of 2027.

As noted during the meeting, Wellmark is asking for a higher renewal from the county due to high cost insurance claims from members on their plan. There has been an 18-percent increase overall from inpatient, outpatient, office, and pharmacy. This increase had gone down from slightly over 8 percent to just above 6 percent due to the loss of a high cost claimant from the plan.

The renewal forecast is set to have Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield at a 6.3-percent renewal. The county’s partial self-funded administration with Auxant has a 0 percent change on admin fees for the next fiscal year. Delta through the Iowa State Association of Counties pool has a 1.3% renewal.

During the meeting, Ryan Berven with Assured Partners spoke about the benefits that they could receive by choosing ISAC that they don’t receive from Wellmark at the moment, as well as the cost of the premiums and the possible risks involved. This included accident insurance, critical illness, wellness plans and enrollment plans.

The supervisors also approved resolution 26-16, which was set to amend the Franklin County Iowa classification and compensation administration guidelines. They then discussed COLA and health plans further, and debated whether employees should be paying 10 percent of their health insurance based on whether they have individual or family-based plans.

Franklin County HR Director Audrey Emery said that 60 percent of employees had no claims or claims paid that totaled less than $2,501. (As noted during the meeting, the members with no claims did not go in for a routine physical.) The county would like for employees to make these appointments so they can catch possible issues sooner rather than later. They also discussed wellness programs and their benefits.

The board made a motion to move to the ISAC Health Plan. They also made a motion to set the employee contribution rates for health insurance premiums at 5 percent for individuals and 10 percent for families per month.

After all of this, they discussed pay increases for the elected officials' compensation — raising pay for the county attorney by 5.5 percent, the sheriff and auditor by 5 percent, the recorder and treasurer by 4.5 percent, the supervisors by 2.2 percent and the chairman stipend by $1,000.