By Tyler Lamb
Editor
Bids from several health insurance carriers were considered during the city’s Finance and Judicial Committee’s Monday evening assembly.
Sam Tapson, city administrator, indicated the current health insurance contract expires July1, and renewal proposals were solicited from 17 re-insurers, nine of which submitted quotes.
The three best quotes, which included incumbent NorthWind, LLC, were submitted for consideration.
According to Tapson, a renewal with NorthWind would have resulted in a fixed cost increase of 22.5 percent (or $60,000), as well as a 22.7 percent increase (or $227,000) in aggregate attachment cost.
Ultimately, the committee authorized Tapson to execute necessary documents to secure coverage with Best Re. As compared to the incumbent’s pricing, Best Re proposed a lower fixed cost, $45,000, and a lower aggregate attachment cost, $67,000.
“Considering that claims experienced during the 2012-13 plan year was exceptionally high, as compared to recent years, a fixed cost increase of 4.2 percent is surprisingly low and the overall cost increase of 13.3 percent is also lower than would have been anticipated,” Tapson noted in a memo to the committee.
Negotiations with re-insurers will continue until a contact is awarded, however, the underwriting process has been suspended, according to the city administrator. As a result, rates cannot be increased, but may be lowered via negotiating.
In other action, the committee approved a one-year, automatically renewing contract with Transcendent Technologies for tax collection software.
The cost of the new software is $600 per year – an increase of $150 per year when compared to the city’s previous software.
Transcendent Technologies is a web-based product, which allows users to work from the same database to record tax payments.
“The software that was used up to now was housed on each municipalities server,” Finance Director Mary Hinske noted. “The taxpayer database was emailed from the county and subsequently uploaded onto the municipal server for the purpose of recording the December and January collections. The database, with collections information, was then sent back to the county to be uploaded into the software used by the county in order for the county to collect the remaining payments due.
“Transcendent Technologies has developed a web-based product that allows all users to be working form the same database to record tax payments,” she continued. “The county will use this software as well, eliminating the need to transmit data files to and from the various communities.”
