Commissioners elect new president; Anderson not running in 2020

After seven years as president of the Brown County Commissioners, Dave Anderson announced late last year that he would be stepping down as president and would not be seeking another term on the board in 2020.

At the Jan. 8 commissioners meeting, Jerry Pittman was elected president and Diana Biddle remained vice president.

“It’s time for me to go, step aside for one of my colleagues here,” Anderson said.

Anderson, a Republican, has served two terms as a commissioner representing District 2, which is Hamblen Township. He is also a former Brown County sheriff.

“I’m going to sit back and be a member,” he said at the Dec. 11 meeting.

“I have one year left, and I will make it a fun one.”

As of Jan. 15, one candidate had filed paperwork to run for Anderson’s seat: Fellow Republican Blake Wolpert. Wolpert served as a county commissioner from 2003 to 2008.

County looking at new health insurance plans for 2021

Brown County government employees could have a new health insurance policy next year as the county prepares to accept requests for proposals.

Human resources coordinator Melissa Stinson outlined the 2020 goals for her department at the Jan. 8 Brown County Commissioners meeting, including issuing requests for proposals for health insurance policies by March 1. “We really have to do due diligence to see if we cannot lower costs,” she said

“We’re locked in for one more year, so 2020 will still be with our old policy, so hopefully we will get a chance at something that is better for us.”

Stinson said that she had also been approached by two health insurance brokers that “have enlightened me on some things that we aren’t doing.”

She said the commissioners might want to consider bidding out their health insurance broker, too.

Larry Mayfield is the county’s agent with Zeller Insurance. SIHO Insurance Services is the third-party administrator for the county’s plan.

“I think we owe it to our taxpayers to explore every possible option because of costs,” commissioners President Jerry Pittman said.

Health insurance bids would have to be in before open enrollment for county government employees starts this fall, which usually happens in October.

“We may want to look at pushing back our open enrollment a little bit this year,” Stinson said.

When the county accepted health insurance bids three years ago SIHO was owned by Indiana University Health so “the deep-pocket discounts were huge and made a huge difference for us,” Stinson said.

But SIHO is no longer owned by IU Health, “so things are changing. We’re going to look at that,” Stinson continued.

Resident Tim Clark encouraged Stinson and the commissioners to establish criteria for what they are looking for in health insurance plans, similar to what the county’s election board did when requesting bids for new election equipment.

He also encouraged the county to look into the vendors who are working with Brown County Schools. The school district has reported health insurance savings since working with a new broker. “Due diligence has already happened. We’ve already started down that road with Dr. (Laura) Hammack,” Stinson said.

“I’m sure I’ll be meeting with her again. She’s gone over numbers; we’ve gone over companies and co-pays. This is why we’re starting RFPs now so we’ll be more than ready in March when it goes out.”

Stinson said that the HR department will also begin looking at how often the Brown County Health and Wellness Center is being used by county employees to see if it’s worth funding in the future.

In the fall of 2018, the commissioners voted to provide clinic memberships to county employees as part of their benefits package. “I think it’s a success, but actually how much it’s deferring to our costs yet, we do not know,” Stinson said.

“How many people are getting their prescriptions out there? How many people are getting x-rays? That’s on the goals for this year.”

After paying for memberships, the move was projected to save the county $138,029, according to a return on investment proposal provided by Wellness for Life, which operates the clinic.

Stinson said on Jan. 8 the clinic costs the county around $12,500 a month.

“The question is, are we getting a financial benefit from it? I’ve heard from some people that are participating and they are having very good success, but how many?” Biddle asked.

Pittman said when he voted in favor of the clinic that he wanted to document savings after the first year. “It takes awhile to get people in a habit, instead of going to their doctor, to go out there instead, which is much cheaper for us. We definitely want to see the results after this first year and see if it looks like something we should continue,” he said on Jan. 8.

“If we’re not saving money, I’m ready to flush it.”

HR: New salary study needed for county jobs

The Brown County Commissioners gave the county’s human resources department permission to find out how much it would cost to have another firm do a salary study.

HR Coordinator Melissa Stinson told the commissioners on Jan. 8 that the salary study that a committee of county council members completed in 2018 is not accurate and is not useful.

Former Brown County Council President Keith Baker and council members Darren Byrd and Glenda Stogsdill were on the committee that was formed early in 2018 to analyze how competitive Brown County’s compensation is compared to like-sized and neighboring, larger counties.

Overall, the committee reported that the county was paying competitive wages.

Initially, the county council was looking at doing a salary study with a Muncie company that would have cost $39,000 to $70,000. Instead, the council reached out to the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University about having graduate students do it. The council received that report in December 2017, then did some additional work on it.

Employees who received a pay bump under the recommendations included the jail commander, first deputies in the treasurer’s and recorder’s offices, a part-time employee in Veterans Affairs and the county’s computer network technician. Other recommendations for changes in pay affected the county highway department.

The other counties the committee studied were Pike, Perry, Blackford, Switzerland and Crawford counties, along with neighboring, larger counties like Monroe and Bartholomew. Four of those counties were identified by IU as like-sized counties to Brown.

“Everyone wants to compare us to like counties. That’s not where our competition is. They want us to compare us to a county that is the same size and a county that takes in the same amount of funds,” Stinson said.

Stinson said the county’s job descriptions also do not match up with other counties and that the study had looked at those descriptions, too. “It is so skewed that the state of Indiana cannot use it even in any of their studies that they do. … We are so far skewed compared to other people, our job descriptions don’t match up,” she said.

She asked the commissioners for permission to get more information from Waggoner, Irwin, Scheele & Associates on the cost for them to do a study of salaries and job descriptions in the county.

Stinson said it’s important to do a salary study that focuses on larger counties that pay highway department drivers and sheriff’s deputies more.

“Mike (Magner, highway superintendent) brings someone in, he gets them a CDL, he gets them all in and gets them trained. They do everything they need to do, then lo and behold, Monroe County is going to hire them $4 more on the hour than what we pay, then they go,” Stinson said.

“We need to look at what we’re doing, because we are losing money by doing it the way we are doing it. We cannot just compare ourselves to like counties because that is not our competition.”

Resident Tim Clark said any new study should examine how long it takes employees to complete certain tasks required by law and how many employees are needed to complete those tasks.

“It’s not apples to apples. It’s what are you required to do by statute? How much of it do you do? What skills do you need for people to do that?” he said.

Commissioners President Jerry Pittman said the study should also look at how much the county spends to train employees, like sheriff’s deputies, who leave not longer after receiving certifications or attending the law enforcement academy.

“If we’re spending $20,000 a year, that’s wasted on people who leave after the first year. Take that money and give it to the ones that stay and keep them instead of retraining new ones all the time,” he said.

“Sometimes you get what you pay for, and sometimes, it might be better to pay more to keep good people.”