One county commissioner says the financial changes even the playing field for county workers.
Read more: Local, Economy, Business, Larry Fleis, Grand Traverse County Board of Commissioners, Grand Traverse County
TRAVERSE CITY -- "They were the last group paying so we decided as a board to have them discontinue out of fairness for paying the premium," says Grand Traverse County commissioner, Larry Fleis.
Commissioner Fleis is talking about the board's decision to increase the salary for some county workers and not have them pay their health insurance premium.
"We had voted to discontinue the employees contributing towards paying 10% of their premium on their health insurance and to give them a one and half pay increase in salary," says Fleis.
The five to two vote in favor of the decision affects non-contract exempt employees which are generally supervisory employees within county departments. Commissioner Fleis says this includes about 30 or so county workers who have been paying the insurance premium since 2003.
"This particular case, the non-contract exempt employees actually even though they may have been getting a raise, the 10% was eating that up....The county has 500 employees but this group was the last group paying and they were certainly the minority 30 or less that are affected and the rest of the county employees weren't paying a portion of the their health premium at all," says Fleis.
Fleis says the decision equalizes the financial standards for county workers, especially during a touch economy.
"I think it equalizes the treatment of the employees so that we're treating all employees equal. If the majority of them aren't paying a portion of their premium for health insurance then probably none of them should be," says Fleis.
Commissioner Flies says the county workers who are exempted will receive their new benefits starting in 2010. As far as wage negotiations go in the future, he says that depends on the economy and the status of Grand Traverse County.
