1 1 2 3 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS' COURT 4 Special Session 5 Monday, July 29, 2019 6 9:00 a.m. 7 Commissioners' Courtroom 8 Kerr County Courthouse 9 Kerrville, Texas 78028 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 PRESENT: ROB KELLY, Kerr County Judge HARLEY BELEW, Commissioner Precinct 1 24 JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Precinct 3 DON HARRIS, Commissioner Precinct 4 25 2 1 I-N-D-E-X 2 NO. PAGE 3 *** APPROVAL AGENDA: 4 1.1 Pay the Bills. 3 5 1.2 Budget Amendments. 3 6 1.4 Court Orders. 4 7 1.5 Consider, discuss and take appropriate 4 action to approve supplemental benefit 8 plan options administered by SWBC for employees effective FY 19-20. 9 *** Reporter's Certificate. 21 10 * * * * * * 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 1 JUDGE KELLY: Good morning. Court will be 2 in session. It is Monday, July the 29th, 2019, a couple 3 minutes after 9 o'clock. 4 First item on the agenda is 1.1 to pay the 5 bills. 6 MR. ROBLES: Yes, Sir. Kerr County is to 7 disburse $350,716.33. The Airport $25,134.65. Adult 8 Probation $16,035.03? Juvenile Probation $41,045.79. 9 Fund 79 $1,515.30. And fund 95 $70.10. 10 JUDGE KELLY: Okay. Is there any 11 discussion? 12 I move to pay the bills. 13 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Second. 14 JUDGE KELLY: I made a motion, seconded by 15 Commissioner Harris to pay the bills. Those in favor 16 raise your hand. Four zero, unanimous. 17 1.2 budget amendments? 18 MR. ROBLES: We have three today. First 19 one's for Road & Bridge moving aggregate to road base. 20 Second one is certifying new revenue for insurance 21 proceeds for Animal Control vehicle damage. And request 22 from the Public Relations Officer to move some money 23 into office supplies and books and -- 24 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: I move to approve the 25 budget amendments. 4 1 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Second. 2 JUDGE KELLY: Been moved by Commissioner 3 Harris, seconded by Commissioner Belew to approve the 4 budget amendments. Any further discussion? Four zero, 5 unanimous. 6 1.3 late bills. 7 MR. ROBLES: No, Sir. 8 JUDGE KELLY: 1.4 court orders. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes. I make a motion -- 10 actually, I have reviewed court orders from the July 11 22nd meeting, court orders 37587 through 37604 A, B and 12 C. I make a motion that we approve those court orders. 13 JUDGE KELLY: Okay. Been a motion by 14 Commissioner Letz, seconded by Commissioner Harris to 15 approve the court orders as presented. Is there any 16 further discussion? Those in favor raise your hand. 17 Four zero, unanimous. 18 1.5 consider, discuss and take appropriate 19 action to approve supplemental benefit plan options 20 administered by SWBC for employees effective this next 21 budget year. Jennifer Doss. 22 MRS. DOSS: Yes, Sir. I believe that Cindi 23 left a packet in your box this last week, so I hope 24 you've had time to glance at them. And Terri Perez is 25 like pulling up in the parking lot if you have any 5 1 questions if I can't answer them right now. 2 But I just wanted to basically -- 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Jennifer, pull that 4 microphone closer to you. 5 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: I thought it is just 6 me. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We can't hear you up 8 here. 9 MRS. JENNIFER DOSS: Okay, I'm sorry. I'm 10 sorry. I feel like I'm talking really loud. 11 JUDGE KELLY: A little bit closer. 12 MRS. JENNIFER DOSS: So again this has no -- 13 COMMISSIONER BELEW: You've just completely 14 refined it. Talk to the mike. Take it from me. 15 MRS. JENNIFER DOSS: Can you hear me now? 16 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Not really. 17 MRS. JENNIFER DOSS: Really? 18 MRS. STEBBINS: Project, Jennifer. 19 MRS. JENNIFER DOSS: I'm projecting. Okay, 20 I'll yell at y'all. Sorry, sorry. 21 So the supplemental ancillary products do 22 not have a budget impact. This is strictly employee 23 dollars with the exception of the basic life insurance 24 that the county covers. So MetLife is the first slide. 25 So I'm proposing -- well, keep going. Keep going. 6 1 Okay. So vision, there was no increase for vision so 2 we're sticking with Avesis. So no change with vision. 3 We'll have the big plan, the buy-up plan, nothing 4 changes there. 5 Now, with the MetLife with the basic life 6 and AD&D there was an increase from -- as you'll see 7 from the current rate of .233. It went up from .28, so 8 Mutual of Omaha has beat our current rates down to .228, 9 so I recommend that we move to Mutual of Omaha. They do 10 guarantee a three-year lock, which is very good, but 11 that's very rare that they do that. 12 So the next slide, this is the Voluntary 13 Life and AD&D. Now, this particular -- the MetLife, the 14 rates did not increase, but to get the other good rates 15 with Mutual of Omaha we kind of had to package the deal. 16 So they have, Mutual of Omaha, has met the rate, the 17 MetLife insurance rates. 18 And so there really aren't any other changes 19 except for the five times earnings up to 300,000. We 20 don't really have anybody that makes more than that, so 21 the fact that we went $200,000, I don't think that's 22 really going to impact us. 23 And then the other plus on Mutual of Omaha's 24 side is we get an extra $10,000 incremental increase per 25 year from 10,000 to 20. You can up it 20,000 every 7 1 year. Each year, I should say. 2 MRS. JENNIFER DOSS: Terri's here. If you 3 have any other questions Terri can answer them. 4 MS. PEREZ: So going on to -- keep going, 5 Bruce. So you'll see that the current rate for the 6 short term disability is .47, but the renewal was .517 7 for -- I'm looking at the 60 to 99. So if you go -- it 8 pretty much goes up from each age category. 9 And then on the Mutual of Omaha side it 10 stayed the same, or it matched it, or it beat it. So 11 the proposal there is to go to Mutual of Omaha. 12 JUDGE KELLY: And that's true on all of 13 these, isn't it? 14 MS. PEREZ: Yes. 15 JUDGE KELLY: Mutual of Omaha quoted us a 16 better rate? 17 MS. PEREZ: Yes, Sir. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Better or equal. 19 MS. PEREZ: They're matching current rates, 20 so MetLife wanted to increase. 21 JUDGE KELLY: Okay, I think we got that. 22 MRS. JENNIFER DOSS: And so we currently 23 have our our accident, our critical injury plans through 24 Allstate, as well as our cancer. We're proposing that 25 our cancer plan stay with Allstate, but for the 8 1 voluntary accident plan and the critical illness, we're 2 recommending that we switch to Mutual of Omaha on that. 3 And those numbers are really, really little. 4 JUDGE KELLY: And that's because of better 5 rates? 6 MRS. JENNIFER DOSS: They have better rates 7 all the way down. 8 JUDGE KELLY: And you keeping Allstate on 9 the cancer? 10 MRS. JENNIFER DOSS: Yes, Sir. 11 JUDGE KELLY: You're switching critical 12 illness? 13 MRS. JENNIFER DOSS: It's critical illness 14 and the accident to Mutual of Omaha. 15 JUDGE KELLY: And again, better rates. 16 MRS. JENNIFER DOSS: Better rates, correct. 17 JUDGE KELLY: Okay. I think I understand 18 it. Any questions? 19 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Well, I have one 20 question. Typically you get, if you do a package deal, 21 you get a better rate on everything. Why did we have to 22 -- was it just no coming off of it? 23 MS. PEREZ: For the MetLife, the renewal 24 itself on a couple of the products were actually an 25 increase, and with MetLife being able to do the bundle 9 1 deal, the more product lines you put together for the 2 client, to help in the reduction rate and the 3 underwriting aspect of it. 4 So like on the voluntary life, they're able 5 to provide you $20,000 incremental increases per year 6 where currently it's 10,000, so we're able to bring some 7 things into the plan that actually might be more 8 beneficial to the employees as well as child life, 9 increasing that option up to 20,000 where it is right 10 now at ten, so we were able to pull some additional 11 benefits lines in there for you. 12 MRS. JENNIFER DOSS: So either getting lower 13 rates or more product for the same money basically. 14 COMMISSIONER BELEW: No, I like that you -- 15 it's better to have competition with your vendors 16 always. 17 MS. PEREZ: Correct. And plus three-year 18 rate guarantees on all the lines, so that in itself is a 19 big plus, huge. 20 MRS. LANTZ: May I ask a question? I 21 notice, Terri, some of these rates, we're not getting 22 Parkinson's, Alzheimer's. Those aren't going to be 23 insurable anymore? 24 MS. PEREZ: Correct. So there were slight 25 differences in the packages, because it's just so hard 10 1 to get exact apple to apple matches, so where one may 2 have some items like occupational HIV, Alzheimer's on 3 current Allstate. On the Mutual they've added in 4 benefits for the children, additional benefits, so where 5 Allstate didn't have it. So it's kind of a little bit 6 of a trade-off. 7 So they have cerebral palsy -- cerebral 8 palsy, structural congenital defect, genetic disorder, 9 congenital metabolic disorder, Type I diabetes. So they 10 added all those lines in for the children where they 11 don't currently have it on Allstate, so it's kind of a 12 little bit of a trade-off. No package is exactly the 13 same. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: On that, if we had a 15 loss of sight -- I mean if someone had -- if you have 16 coverage already, you don't lose it, or you do lose it? 17 I mean if you have a benefit -- or say you have 18 Parkinson's, say one of our employees has Parkinson's, 19 and right now they're being covered and we switch. Are 20 they no longer covered? 21 JUDGE KELLY: No. 22 MS. PEREZ: Well, the way the benefit works 23 is a one-time payout. So let's say you have somebody 24 now that has Allstate who has been diagnosed with 25 Parkinson's, they would have gotten a payout. They're 11 1 paid out, the benefits don't pay again. So they would 2 have -- they would have already been paid out. Does 3 that kind of -- 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So all of the voluntary 5 critical illness are one-time payouts? 6 MS. PEREZ: Let me see. Some of them 7 actually payout a second time. But I want to say that 8 loss of sight, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, HIV, paralysis, 9 coma, those are all single pays. So once you get it, it 10 doesn't go away, you stay with it. 11 COMMISSIONER BELEW: When you say payout, 12 that means maximum payout? 13 MS. PEREZ: Whatever the benefit is that 14 they picked. So an employee could have picked either 15 5,000, 10,000 or 15,000. So if a person ends up with 16 kidney failure for the very first time that benefit 17 would then payout whatever that level of benefit is that 18 the person elected. So you have to choose to buy either 19 5, 10 or 15. 20 JUDGE KELLY: For just that one time. 21 One-time payment. 22 MS. PEREZ: Well, it could be twice. 23 Depends on what the diagnosis is. So heart attack, that 24 one will pay out a second time. Stroke, that one will 25 pay out a second time, so there's certain ones. It's 12 1 not listed here, but there are some of those benefits 2 that will pay out twice. But I want to say the 3 Alzheimer's does not because once you get it, it doesn't 4 go away. 5 JUDGE KELLY: It's chronic. So all these 6 chronic diseases are no longer in Mutual of Omaha plan? 7 MS. PEREZ: Well, the ones on the top are; 8 the ones on the bottom are not. 9 JUDGE KELLY: Right. But all those NA's 10 that we're looking at there, they're no longer covered. 11 MS. PEREZ: Correct. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It looks like to me on 13 this one, we're not getting as good a deal, and the 14 reason is because you're adding -- everything that was 15 added is for dependent and child, and we don't have that 16 many dependent children on our healthcare. 17 MS. PEREZ: Well, there are some family 18 members that do have their children on it. I don't have 19 the exact number, but we can get it for you if you need 20 it. 21 The other part to that is the spouse benefit 22 for this critical illness, the spouse benefit would 23 actually match the employee benefit. So right now on 24 the Allstate plan if I, the employee, have $10,000.00 in 25 coverage, my spouse has 50 percent of that. On this 13 1 particular plan whatever the spouse purchases -- I'm 2 sorry, the employee purchases, the spouse would have 3 that exact same number. 4 COMMISSIONER BELEW: On the other policies, 5 Jennifer, was Alzheimer's -- has everybody taken 6 Alzheimer's off their policy, or is it offered? 7 MRS. JENNIFER DOSS: Well, I mean it's part 8 of the critical illness. So we do have, you know, a 9 good -- a good share of folks that have critical illness 10 coverage, but they're not specifically taking it just 11 for Alzheimer's. I mean there's a lot of other -- 12 COMMISSIONER BELEW: What I'm asking -- 13 maybe I'm not asking it clearly. We're going from one 14 name brand, brand X to brand Y, and brand X says we 15 don't cover Alzheimer's disease. Did you compare with 16 the other brand Y if they still covered these things 17 that have been excluded in the policy you're 18 recommending? Does that make better sense? 19 MRS. JENNIFER DOSS: Did we ask Mutual of 20 Omaha? 21 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Did you ask. Did you 22 see if we're really measuring apples to apples? 23 MRS. JENNIFER DOSS: We can we find out. 24 MS. PEREZ: If they're going to cover 25 Alzheimer's? 14 1 COMMISSIONER BELEW: I want to look at it 2 apples to apples. If they say we're only going to take 3 care of the kids; we're not going to take care of the 4 old people that get Alzheimer's, I want to make sure 5 everybody has made that as a blanket policy rather than 6 just go with one policy above the other one, and/or if 7 we're not going to do that then we need to measure out 8 and see how many people are more likely to get this 9 thing in the county that need that thing. That's how we 10 need to make the decision. 11 I know it needs to be made on dollars and 12 cents, but it is for a specific need. In the event of a 13 need we need to have it in place so if we say okay, we 14 have 35 percent more people that are more likely to get 15 Parkinson's or Alzheimer's, you name the disease, versus 16 15 percent that are likely to have some childhood 17 paralysis or something. I'm just making these things 18 up. Let's measure them apples to apples, and include 19 the dollars and cents, because it doesn't sound like 20 we're talking about the same thing to me. If something 21 is strictly not offered, did you shop and see if others 22 offered it. 23 MS. PEREZ: Yes, we did. So we also went to 24 MetLife. We went to Parkers, and so we have the 25 original analysis that you were provided. We've got 15 1 that information in there. 2 The thing with the critical illness, it's a 3 really tough benefit to be able to sit side by side 4 because all the carriers are different. And this 5 particular company, Mutual of Omaha, they did not file 6 with the State of Texas to have these items included so 7 they can't just add them in. They're filing as they're 8 filing. 9 So each company has different chronic 10 diseases, I guess, included in them. So Allstate -- so 11 Allstate basically has those in -- they have those out, 12 but they kind of shifted down and added in additional 13 benefits for the children, but they omitted some of the 14 benefits for the employees themselves with those chronic 15 conditions. Not all the carriers have them. 16 How many claims have been paid out from 17 Allstate for Alzheimer's, I have no idea. I couldn't 18 begin to tell you that, and I don't know that they would 19 actually provide that number to us. 20 As far as the sight or the HIV, I'm not 21 exactly sure. I mean I don't know what those numbers 22 are as far as our carriers go, as far as how many claims 23 they have paid out. I can ask them, but I don't think 24 they're going to give me that data. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think one of the 16 1 things to remember on that is that this is voluntary for 2 the employees to take. What we're all for doing is 3 saying these plans include payroll deductions on, if 4 they want to pay for them. If they don't like this plan 5 they can go get a voluntary short-term disability plan 6 on their own. 7 MS. PEREZ: Well actually, if I might, 8 Commissioner, if they really like the Allstate plan they 9 can port it, and they can keep it if they choose. So 10 that's -- you know, if I'm on the -- if I'm with a 11 company and you know what, I like my critical illness 12 better than this other one, I can actually call the 13 company. So I can keep it if I want to, or I can swap 14 over. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: My point is it's not all 16 employees; it's those employees that want benefits. If 17 they don't like the plans we offer, they can go out into 18 the market place and get their own plans. 19 MS. PEREZ: Historically, as far as 20 portability of the product, usually people don't do it 21 because they don't want to have it come straight out of 22 their bank account. That's just a statistic. 23 JUDGE KELLY: But it's just part of the 24 package deal with Mutual of Omaha? 25 MRS. DOSS: Yes. 17 1 MS. PEREZ: Yes, Sir. 2 JUDGE KELLY: Everything's tied -- 3 MS. PEREZ: Everything is tied together that 4 you -- 5 JUDGE KELLY: -- every switch that you've 6 recommended. 7 MRS. JENNIFER DOSS: To get those lower 8 rates, it is. 9 JUDGE KELLY: Now, is this the only plan 10 that there's a significant variance between what the 11 prior insurance company was providing and what Mutual of 12 Omaha is? 13 MRS. JENNIFER DOSS: There were some pieces 14 of -- we looked at Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and Hartford. 15 There were some pieces that were lower, but not as low 16 across the board. This was pretty much across the board 17 the best option. Or we can just keep what we have now 18 and pay a little more. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: As I heard it's a 20 question, I want to make sure to repeat it what I 21 thought. There's little bit of a change on -- 22 whichever one we were looking at, voluntary critical 23 illness. Is that the only plan that has any kind of 24 change versus what we had last year? 25 JUDGE KELLY: This is a significant 18 1 variance, okay. It's voluntary, I understand that. 2 Completely voluntary. Employees sign up for it. But 3 it's a significant difference in plan. With all the 4 other plans that we've looked at, are there significant 5 differences? 6 MS. PEREZ: The only big difference that I 7 see that the negative takes away would be on the 8 voluntary life where instead of the $500,000.00 maximum 9 that a person could get, it goes down to 300,000. But 10 right now you only have one person that is actually 11 insured for over 300,000, and Mutual of Omaha has agreed 12 to go ahead and let that person continue with that 13 amount of coverage if they choose to do so. So that 14 person would be grandfathered in. But there's only one. 15 So you have that limit there, but people don't really 16 take advantage of it. 17 JUDGE KELLY: Got it. Any other discussion? 18 COMMISSIONER BELEW: One thing. When we 19 have signups, will it be made clear to everybody that 20 they can remain with the policy that we have, and I want 21 to make sure everyone understands that and knows it. 22 That will be presented that way? 23 MRS. DOSS: Yes. We'll explain that in open 24 enrollment. 25 JUDGE KELLY: Particularly these two plans, 19 1 one of the difference between 300 and 500 thousand 2 dollars life insurance in this plan, because they are 3 different. 4 MS. PEREZ: Correct. That is a difference. 5 JUDGE KELLY: And 300 thousand versus 500 6 thousand on life insurance only affects one person, so 7 it's not big deal. But this might affect more folks. 8 MRS. DOSS: We'll sure let them know that 9 they can port it if they like. It's always an option. 10 JUDGE KELLY: Well, in light of the fact 11 that our carriers raised rates on us, and you shopped 12 around with Mutual of Omaha and beat the rates, and 13 there's limited variation between the plans that we had, 14 they're all voluntary, they don't impact the budget, 15 then I would move that we approve the benefits package. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 17 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Second. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Third. 19 JUDGE KELLY: I moved and Commissioner Letz 20 seconded to approve the benefits package. Any further 21 discussion? Those in favor raise your hand. Unanimous, 22 four zero. 23 MRS. JENNIFER DOSS: Thank you, gentlemen. 24 MS. PEREZ: Thank you. 25 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Thank you. Good job. 20 1 JUDGE KELLY: Glad we got all this cleared 2 up. 3 * * * * * * 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 21 1 STATE OF TEXAS * 2 COUNTY OF KERR * 3 I, DEBRA ELLEN GIFFORD, Certified Shorthand 4 Reporter in and for the State of Texas, and Official 5 Reporter in and for Kerr County, do hereby certify that 6 the above and foregoing pages contain and comprise a 7 true and correct transcription of the proceedings had in 8 the above-entitled Commissioners' Court Approval Agenda. 9 Dated this the 5th day of August, A.D., 10 2019. 11 12 /s/DEBRA ELLEN GIFFORD Certified Shorthand Reporter 13 No. 953 Expiration Date 04/31/2020 14 * * * * * * 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25