MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
FEBRUARY 21, 2008
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek: COBRA and 509A Administration and Fee Structure
Reports and Inquiries from the Board of Supervisors
Executive Session: Dooley, et al., vs. Johnson County, et al., CVCV066432
Chairperson Sullivan called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 9:11 a.m. Members present were: Pat Harney, Larry Meyers, Terrence Neuzil, Sally Stutsman, and Rod Sullivan.
Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities Director Kris Artley said that at the recommendation of office staff and Planning Council Chairperson Gillian Fox, the MH/DD Planning Council is looking to replace Michael Bowers who has retired. Scott Regenwether has applied to fulfill the term through September 30, 2009. Artley said that there was an additional position available on the Targeted Case Management Advisory Board, and stated that Kate Cardamon, a local physical therapist with a background in early childhood education, has applied for the "family member" position. Stutsman said that they both look like good applications, and that they were fortunate to have their interest and expertise. R. Sullivan said that these items would be on a future formal agenda for approval.
Human Resources Administrator Lora Shramek said that COBRA is a federal law extended to individuals who meet certain criteria and are allowed to remain on the County's health and/or dental care plan at their own expense. COBRA is extended for up to 18 months in cases of reduction of hours affecting status, layoff, and termination. She noted that individuals may also qualify for an additional 11 months of COBRA in cases of disabilities. COBRA is extended for up to 36 months with the loss of dependent status such as children of current employees who would lose coverage because of their age. Iowa Code 509A.13 requires Johnson County and other public entities to extend group health care coverage to employees who retire until they reach age 65 or are Medicare eligible and they would pay the full cost.
Shramek said that COBRA and 509A coverage are administered through the Auditor’s Office. She said that Human Resources (HR) explains COBRA in orientations and 509A in retirement consultations and is involved with questions and communication for both benefits. The Auditor’s Office ensures COBRA compliance including required notices and billing. Shramek said that COBRA law allows plans to charge up to a 2% administrative fee to help offset administration costs associated with the plan and up to a 50% administrative fee in the case of disability extension. She noted that the City of Des Moines has an Attorney General Opinion letter stating that administrative fees are appropriate for 509A. She said that no one has qualified for disability coverage before so that issue has not been addressed by the Board. She said that they did a survey of administrative fees charged by public entities and said that the majority do charge an administration fee for COBRA and several charge for 509A.
Shramek said that there are 28 individuals on COBRA and 509A and stated that with the current volume of enrollees and the rate structure, a 2% fee would bring in about $2,425 annually, which is almost equal to the cost of administration for Johnson County. She said that Auditor’s Office Account Clerk II Carla Scherbring spends 104 hours annually on COBRA/509A administration and HR spends an additional 20 hours yearly. Shramek contacted Wellmark to see how much outsourcing would be and said that it would cost $100 per person.
Shramek proposed charging a 2% administration fee for COBRA including disability extension and 509A with an appropriate notice period to all affected individuals and said the notice period should be at least 30 days and therefore the effective date would be no sooner than April 1, 2008. She said that it would be more convenient to start on July 1, 2008 because it would be the start of the new fiscal year and they would be in communication with COBRA and 509A participants due to increased health care costs. Increasing the disability by an additional 48% would not be necessary because the last 11 months they would have reduced costs and would already be in the plan for 18 months. Shramek said they have a stop loss cap of $50,000 per year/per individual.
Stutsman asked if an employee could charge discrimination if Johnson County charged 2% for one group and not another. Shramek said that COBRA law allows plans to charge up to 50%, and added that she would like to see the fees equal even though the law allows Johnson County to charge more. Stutsman said that some of the people were charging nothing for disabilities. Shramek said that those people would be covering the cost of administration too. Stutsman said that this issue does not come up very often, and said that it was fair to charge everyone equal amounts. Shramek said that in the past 10 years this was the first such situation.
R. Sullivan asked if the 2% was State or Federal law. Shramek answered Federal law. R. Sullivan said that it was interesting that the 2% was pretty close to what the cost tax would be. He asked if there was any talk of raising that because if the Board adopted the 2% they would be a few hundred dollars short. Shramek said that it had been 2% since 1986. Stutsman asked if a COBRA-eligible employee would pay the 2% administrative fee monthly on the premiums that they are charged, and Shramek said yes. Shramek said that a single coverage is $356.90 per month so the difference to be paid would be $7. R. Sullivan asked if that would be something that would be attached to their bill. Shramek said yes and added that individuals would not pay a separate fee to the County.
Stutsman asked if the system to have two departments administrating COBRA worked well and said there could be communication lost between the two departments. Shramek said that the Auditor's Office and HR work very close together and help each other with specific problems. She noted that ideally the Auditor's Office would handle everything having to do with billing and accounting. R. Sullivan asked if it was clear to former employees that they need to talk to the Auditor’s Office payroll division, and Shramek said yes. She said that sometimes former employees will call the Auditor's Office, and that if Scherbring was unsure she would give her a call and they would do research if necessary. Stutsman asked if the system was working well the way it was presently laid out. Shramek answered that overall it was and added that sometimes payroll ends up being more than a 40-hour per week job for Scherbring and that having backup and additional assistance would help quite a bit. Neuzil said that he was certainly comfortable moving forward, and said that this was part of the strategic planning to diversify funding streams and enhance revenues. Stutsman agreed. R. Sullivan thanked Shramek and said the Board would put this on the formal agenda for the following week.
Emergency Management Director Dave Wilson said he wanted to talk with the Board about financial possibilities and planning for hazard mitigation grants. Stutsman asked if the last plan was done in connection with the 1993 floods. Wilson said that the last plan was done in 2002 and needs to be updated every five years. Iowa State Hazard Mitigation Grant Officer John Wageman said that hazard mitigation is simply any action or measure taken to reduce or eliminate damages from future natural hazard events. He said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has several programs that provide funding for hazard mitigation, and that there are five such programs in use in Iowa. The two most prevalently used in Iowa are the Pre-Disaster Mitigation Grant (PDM) and the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HM).
Wageman said that PDM was first funded in 2003. Yearly there is around $100 million available nationwide. Wageman said that the funding is nationally competitive and that generally each state gets awarded a minimum allocation of $500,000 from Federal funds. He said that Iowa has done extremely well in competing for the funds an. In FY07 Iowa had received close to $2 million for planning and projects and added that PDM was an annual funding stream. R. Sullivan asked who applies for the grant. Wageman said that local communities submit grant applications to the State, who then review them and make recommendations before sending them to FEMA. He said that FEMA utilizes a national review committee that evaluates all the benefits, costs analysis, and technical information, before making awards to the State. Wageman said that they generally are awarded approximately 85% to 90% of the requested funds. He reiterated that the important thing about the PDM was it is available every year so communities have the opportunity to compete for grant funding out of the mitigation programs.
Wageman said that the HM was made up of funds made available after a Presidential Disaster Declaration. He said that in 2007 Iowa had five declared disasters and noted that the funds received in the past year from the HM exceed the funds available after the 1993 floods. He said that there were an unprecedented amount of disasters in Iowa, and that prior to 2007 there were, at the most, 2 declared disasters in a year. Wageman reiterated that in contrast to PDM, HM funds were only available after declared disasters. He said that they had about $20 million in Federal funding available under the HM, and that about $15 million to $16 million of that was still available. Wageman said that funding is 75% Federal, 10% State, and 15% local funds.
Wageman said that states, local jurisdictions, and some private non-profit organizations were eligible for the program. Wageman said that HM of 2000 amended the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, and require communities that apply for project funding to have a local Hazard Mitigation Plan in place. Wageman noted that currently no one in Johnson County has a FEMA-approved plan. Wageman said that previously the State was the approval authority and had control over the plan requirements, but the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 changed that and the control went to FEMA. He said the new planning requirements were more detailed and made plans more difficult to get approved.
Wageman said that there were 256 jurisdictions in Iowa that had FEMA approved plans, and 136 were in the process or writing such plans and added that they awarded 273 planning grant awards, and 50 applications for PDM were just submitted. Wageman said that a general timeline for a mitigation plan is one to three years and added that typically a planner from a council of governments or a planning contractor would lead a community through the planning process. Wageman said that the Johnson County Council of Governments (JCCOG) has done several plans in the past and are currently working on seven or eight others.
Wageman said that commonly funded programs in Iowa were buyouts of flooded homes, funding for building tornado shelters, structure relocation of properties, floodplains, floodwalls, and local mitigation planning grants. He said that one advantage of planning was that in the event of a disaster, the communities would rarely have to pay any cash for them. Harney asked if Johnson County had an approved mitigation plan in place. Wilson said that Johnson County did not have a FEMA-approved plan or a mitigation plan of any kind in place and said they would need to do that because the County is missing out on several opportunities for mitigation planning and grants. He said that East Central Iowa Council of Governments (ECICOG) Development Planner Lisa-Marie Garlich and himself had submitted a note of interest, and need the Board approval to go forward with the unincorporated areas. Coralville submitted a letter of interest and the potential is very high to do some successful programs.
Stutsman said that a flood was anticipating during the coming spring because of the snow melt, and asked if Johnson County would be eligible for funds to be used for road repairs and other things. Wageman said that that those funds fall under a different program, the Public Assistance Grant Program, and that is up to the State to complete the planning process so that communities could receive funds for infrastructure damage repairs. Meyers asked if it was possible to get a plan moving fast enough for the Joint Communications Center. Wilson said there might be some grants to help enhance the building further down the road or to help offset costs. He said that Woodbury County has worked on hazard mitigation like emergency power generation, hardening of facilities with increased structural glass, etc. Wageman said that developing a mitigation plan is not high on a board's or local council's priority list until after a disaster occurs, at which point it becomes critical for them to obtain funding that isn't available.
Harney said that he was very surprised to find that Johnson County did not have an approved mitigation plan in place, even though the Board was under the impression that the last plan had in fact been approved. Stutsman agreed, and said she thought it was imperative to get a mitigation plan in place for the community. R. Sullivan said that the Board wants to move forward with a mitigation plan and said he was disappointed that Coralville was the only city taking steps to get a mitigation plan in place. Wilson said that Iowa City and North Liberty were also interested. Harney said that they would have to reach out to the smaller communities, and Stutsman agreed. Stutsman asked if Wilson would write the grant. Wilson said that he would do it with ECICOG assistance because the process was very time-consuming and his staffing was limited, but would need the Board's approval.
Garlich said she had written up the planning grant application and as part of that there were several resolutions that needed to be passed. Harney asked if the Board would have those resolutions ready the following week. Garlich said yes. Wilson said it would cost about $17,000 to $17,500 to do it with no direct cost. R. Sullivan thanked Wilson, Wagner, and Garlich for coming and bringing to the Board's attention the fact that Johnson County had no mitigation plan in place. R. Sullivan noted that this item would be placed on a future formal agenda for approval.
R. Sullivan said there was discussion/action needed regarding the request to include a Conservation Board ballot measure for the 2008 General Election. He said that the Board wants to make sure there were a couple meetings prior to the formal vote so that the public has ample opportunity to offer feedback. He said that the request would be on the informal agenda again the following week.
Harney attended a Sixth Judicial District meeting, a liaison meeting with Ambulance Director Steve Spenler, the Iowa City Chamber of Commerce roundtable, the ECICOG Technical Advisory Committee, a RAGBRAI Planning Committee meeting with North Liberty, a Joint Communications Center meeting, and a Courthouse Security meeting. He will attend the Agribusiness and Bioscience breakfast on February 22, 2008.
Stutsman attended the Chamber of Commerce Local Government Affairs meeting and had a liaison meeting with County Engineer Greg Parker. She thanked road crews for their extra efforts during the recent snow storms.
Neuzil met with Johnson County Historical Society Executive Director Shaner Magalhaes regarding the County Farm, and attended the Agribusiness and Bioscience Committee meeting. Neuzil will be attending the National Association of Counties legislative meetings in Washington, D.C. from February 26 through March 6, 2008.
Meyers attended the Chamber of Commerce Local Government Affairs meeting. He discussed the difficulties road crews have had while plowing.
R. Sullivan attended the EMS training, the Chamber of Commerce Washington, D.C. trip, a liaison meeting with Artley, and met with Iowa City City Manager candidates. He and County Attorney Janet Lyness attended a community meeting about disproportionate minority contact with police.
Recessed at 10:08 a.m.; reconvened at 10:22 a.m.
Motion by Stutsman, second by Harney, to enter into Executive Session at 10:23 a.m. to discuss “Dooley, et al., vs. Johnson County, et al., CVCV066432” under section 21.5(1.c), Code of Iowa, “to discuss strategy with counsel in matters that are presently in litigation or where litigation is imminent where its disclosure would be likely to prejudice or disadvantage the position of the governmental body in that litigation.” Roll call: aye: Harney, Stutsman, Sullivan, Neuzil, Meyers.
Meyers left at 10:24 a.m.
Motion by Neuzil, second by Harney, to leave Executive Session at 11:01 a.m. Roll call: aye: Harney, Stutsman, Sullivan, Neuzil; absent: Meyers.
Adjourned at 11:01 a.m.
______________________________________________________________________
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By:
On the _______ day of _____________________, 2008
By John Deeth and Casie Kadlec, Recording Secretaries
Sent to the Board of Supervisors on March 25, 2008 at 9:00 a.m.