JAMESTOWN – A group of current and retired city workers were at Jamestown City Hall Monday night to picket and call attention to their opposition to the mayor’s proposal to change the healthcare plan for retirees.
The protest took place as the Jamestown City Council was scheduled to hold a public hearing on the city’s $34.9 million budget for next year. Mayor Eddie Sunquist’s proposed budget includes $1.66 million in savings over the current year’s spending plan. A key savings comes from a proposal to unilaterally move eligible retired city employees off of the city healthcare program and over to a Medicare Supplement or Medicare Advantage healthcare plan. The city would pay for the full premium of the members who’ve switched to those plans.
Sundquist claims the proposal would save the retirees over a $1,000 each year, while also saving the city as much as $1.1 million in healthcare and prescription costs in 2021.
But it remains to be seen if this change can be legally accomplished, as the current retirement health plan was negotiated with collective bargaining groups and the change may require each group’s consent before it can move forward.
Sundquist told WRFA during his monthly interview at the start of this month that he feels as long as the benefits and cost don’t change for retirees, he feels the city should be able to make the switch.
It’s a bit of a grey area,” Sunquist acknowledged during a recent interview with WRFA. “We’re working with our legal counsel to figure out what is involved with it. The difficult thing is that unions can not negotiate for retirees and we as a city can not go to retirees and say we want to bring you all together and renegotiate this. Our requirement is that we have to provide equivalent coverage.”
However, the members of the city’s collective bargaining units appear to disagree with Sundquist.
According to the Post-Journal, a group of union members attended last night’s protest and explained that they don’t feel the city has the legal right to change the insurance plan without their consent.
The city council also allowed some union representatives an opportunity to speak in person at the public hearing, despite it being advertised as being closed to the public.
There, Jamestown Professional Firefighters Association president Shawn Shilling read a prepared statement that explained why the unions were opposed to the plan and also said they would legally challenge it if the city put the proposal to action.
Jamestown City Council woman Kim Ecklund during the Nov. 16, 2020 City Council meeting.
Later in the evening during the council’s work session, Jamestown Councilwoman at Large Kim Ecklund and Ward 4 councilwoman Marie Carrabba both expressed concern over changing the plan, saying the long-term sustainability is unknown.
When mayor Sundquist provided additional details on different options the council could consider for the changeover, Ecklund also said she wanted the council to have more details before it is forced to make a decision by the Nov. 30 budget deadline, saying it felt like the plan was being “forced down the throats” of the council members.
“There’s just a lot of things that go into this. Insurance is a difficult program to even understand. The overall big picture is, we’ve done business with this firm for a while, so why wasn’t this done in the past? And when someone tells me I’m going to save X amount of dollars, I want to see the numbers,” Ecklund said.
Following the work session discussion, the council agreed to hold another budget work session on Friday, Nov. 23 to hammer out final budget details. The spending plan would then be voted on during the council’s regular voting session on Monday, Nov. 30.
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