City employees get new retirement benefit plan

By Blake Ellington
Citizen Staff Writer

When the Elk Grove Police Department began in 2006 one its main hurdles was hiring new officers because of the current retirement health plan.
Recruitment for law enforcement during the department’s infant stages was no easy task, as identified by every person responsible for its creation, but with a change in policy, so the Elk Grove City Council ushered in a new health benefits program for those who work for city employees at the Aug. 22 meeting.
“Going into our interviews, there were a number of questions about our current retiree medical plan and we did in fact lose candidates because of that,” said Police Chief Robert Simmons. “I can see this (the new plan) as a great recruitment tool but also a retention tool because people are not willing to give up their retirement medical benefits to go on to another agency.”
The new plan offers $800 per month for executive-level employees who have served for five years and regular city employees who have served for 10 years. The money is placed into a “Health Reimbursement Account” HRA and accumulates each month. Employees are eligible, along with their spouse, for both of their lives.
The time accrued by the employee which makes them eligible after the initial grace period is based on “active employment.” This means, someone who takes a large extended amount of leave will not be able to use that time towards their five or 10 year probation period.
City council had a few a problems with the language of these requirements.
“What happens if someone is pregnant and has a child, takes an extended period of time off, it seems that we are going to penalize the woman because it has to be after employment when she took off nine months or a year because of her child and other places don’t really do that,” Elk Grove Mayor Jim Cooper said.
City Council members Michael Leary and Pat Hume, who were both on the Retiree Healthcare Committee appointed on Jan. 10 to come up with different options for healthcare benefits, explained that the point of mentioning “active employment” in the documentation was to make sure those accrued six months of sick time could not be used towards that five or 10 year increment level.
“They can’t bank accrued leave and then use that and say ‘you know I have nine-and-a-half years in but I’ve got six months of accrued leave I’m out of here pay me,” Hume said.
City Council Member Sophia Scherman also expressed concern however over the treatment of pregnant woman who sometimes can stay in bed for up to seven months and then “after that are home with their newborn.”
Deputy City Manager, Frank Oviedo said staff would draft up the documents to make sure that that issue was addressed including not losing sick time for the birth of a child.
City Council Member Gary Davis made some additional clarifications on sick time.
“A year after the birth of that child, you are allowed to use your sick leave,” Davis said. “So I hope that doesn’t get lost in the mix.”
The plan, which is being funded through a transfer of $1.5 million from the city’s reserve fund, is also only good so as long as the employee does not work for another agency following termination of employment with the city of Elk Grove. So in other words, if someone works for the city of Sacramento after they begin collecting retirement health benefits from Elk Grove, their benefits are suspended or terminated should the new agency (Sacramento) supply its own set of benefits.
The program is similar to the one the Cosumnes Community Services District (CSD), city of Folsom, city of Roseville and the Elk Grove Unified School District uses.
Cooper had additional concerns over the distinction between executive time requirements and regular city employee time requirements laid out in the plan. The city currently has four department heads including the city manger, city attorney and city clerk.
With an extensive background in law enforcement, Cooper questioned why the management officials at the police department (police captains and sergeants) weren’t also included in the language and considered “department heads.”
Hume explained the reasoning of that decision by the Retirement Healthcare Committee over the course of their five meetings since January.
“The reason being is that their jobs are a little more secure because they are not at the will of political whims of change,” Hume said.
The plan was passed 5-0 yet in still to bring in a new retirement health benefits program with the included change to not penalize someone who takes an extended leave of having children of some catastrophic illness.
“We tried to find one that is not fluctuating so that we know what our expenses are, it makes it much easier to come up with that year so that we can project out, these are your employees this is their age range,” Hume said.
Aside from attracting and keeping more employees in the city, the new healthcare plan will also help the general fund’s pocketbook according to Oviedo.
“If you were to fund fully and do it similar to what other agencies have done, our first year payment would be in the million dollar range compared to what we are paying which is more in the $400,000 range,” Oviedo said.
In other news, the 21,000 or so residents in Elk Grove that use either a wood or pellet burning stove could be in jeopardy of losing that privilege in the near future.
In two years or so the federal law against these types of fireplaces may take effect and the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District warned the city council of the health effects of wood particles in the air during the winter at the meeting.
Air Pollution Control Officer Larry Greene presented the issue to council.
“The reason why we are doing this is the two-fold, one is because of the health impacts from smoke that comes from fireplaces on our citizens, secondly, we have an opportunity to get ahead of the power curve on a new federal standard that is coming down the pipe,” Greene said.
Greene went on to say that wood smoke makes up for 45 percent of the pollution in the region during winter and that it can cause lung conditions and heart disease.
In response to such statistics, the Management District is proposing no burning on days with poor air quality, which accounts for about 30 days of the year. The restriction would apply to the burning of any solid fuel including wood, pellets and manufactured logs from November through February.
Council members raised concerns over those who can’t afford SMUD services, like senior citizens, and rely on wood burning stoves for their main source of heat during the winter months.
“We would consider an economic hardship and there would be some things people would have to come and show us,” Greene said. “I would have the option of giving those people a pass.”
The enforcement would need to be in the form of visuals only. Residents who should call and complain that they see smoke coming from a chimney would not be enough. A member of the Management District would have to witness the smoke first hand to issue a citation.
Scherman, as well as other council members, had issues with the ban on pellet-burning stoves which are often credited as being fuel efficient.
“I own a pellet burning stove, I’ve had it for about 10 years and it is a cleaner way of heating the area that you are in,” Scherman said.
Leary shared his comments on the importance of wood-burning stoves.
“My parents use a wood-burning stove to keep their house warm and they are retired so to maintain a gas heater in that house would be and astronomical amount of money,” Leary said.
The city of Fresno currently has a similar program.