Mayor and City Council Finance work on City Employee health benefits

FLORENCE – Florence City Council met Wednesday  with Mayor Mickey Haddock to discuss the City’s financial adjustments for the year of 2014. The most notable item was health care for City employees. The last adjustment to benefits was made back in 2009.  With the changes to the federal laws (Obamacare), Florence officials believe that changes should be made to the City’s benefit structure. Thes reason for the initiative, which was made clear in the meeting, they want to avoid adopting the requirements of the Affordable Care Act.

The City of Florence is currently under the grandfather status of health care benefits. Very few changes since the 2009 adjustment have been made in the City’s current catalog of health care benefits. Today’s meeting was to begin the process of ensuring that city employees are able to get what the City Council calls “better benefits”.  If the City were to lose their grandfather status, it would cost approximately $13.00 per city employee per month on individual benefits and $32.00 for employees with family benefits. The Mayor and City County say that none of these changes will occur until March 1st of this year.

All of the details pertaining to the changes to be made have yet to be released, however it is known that the insurance for mental health visits will be treated the same as visiting a general physician.