By Tracy Ouellette
Editor
When the health insurance rates for the Village of East Troy employees came in 22 percent more than what is budgeted for 2016, the village was presented with the problem of how to pay for it.
Since the village had only budgeted for a 10 percent increase from 2015 to 2016, the increase was “a bit of a shock” Clerk-Treasurer Eileen Suhm said Tuesday.
Suhm had informed the Village Board of the increase at the Nov. 2 meeting and brought the issue to the board Nov. 16 for resolution.
In a memo to the board for the Nov. 16 meeting, Suhm detailed the difficulties in switching health insurance carriers. Since the village wasn’t informed about the larger-than-expected increase on Nov. 1.
Suhm’s memo stated she had considered comparing some of the current options to the health plans offered by the State of Wisconsin through the Department of Employee Trust Funds and the League of Wisconsin Municipalities new partnership with WEA, but it was too late in the year to make the switch. She stated she was also unsure if they were the best options.
Suhm suggested the board use some of the $55,000 surplus in the 2015 budget from the savings on the healthy insurance to cover the $24,000 shortfall in the 2016 budget.
“There were a lot of changes in last year’s health insurance for the employees and it created a huge surplus,” Suhm said Tuesday. “We’re using that to make up the difference next year and re-evaluating our options for 2017.”
Suhm said she wanted the public to know, that overall, the village has saved about $29,000 in health insurance over the last two years, in spite of the rate increase for 2016.
“Health insurance costs have actually gone down quite a bit for us,” she said. “It’s a very hard to predict. We had significant changes to the plan last year and that really helped with the costs.”
