[0:00] We're going to go ahead and call this next meeting to order. This is our special council meeting for health insurance. Today's Friday, August 21st, 2026, the time is now 315 p.m., and please call, please call the roll.

[0:14] Councilman Corrinosu?

[0:16] President.

[0:17] Councilman Marine Boarder.

[0:18] Here.

[0:18] Councilman Raffaipine.

[0:19] President.

[0:19] Vice-merdeck-Nacabra, is not present.

[0:21] May I proceed further?

[0:22] May I have a forum?

[0:23] All right.

[0:24] These rise with pledge of allegiance, lead by Councilman.

[0:27] The New Year.

[0:42] Okay.

[0:43] No change to state agenda order business.

[0:44] I'm going to go ahead and open up public comments for a moment.

[0:48] Anyone who would like to speak on this agenda or anything.

[0:54] Jeremy to this Council.

[0:55] Please approach the podium.

[0:59] Okay, being no public comments, we will close public comments, but I'm

[1:03] pleasure going to the worker of Lekno, and I want to speak at this time, and I

[1:06] want to turn it over to the city manager.

[1:09] Yes, good afternoon again, Mayor and Council.

[1:11] Okay, the city's consultant, National Marketing Group Services, has completed

[1:17] the Sanio Marketing and agitation process for the city of Doraos, FY 2627, employee

[1:22] benefits insurance renewals.

[1:25] At now, the city's income and medical carrier issued its final decision at the national level,

[1:31] a 9.5% increase in health firm as a best and final offer with no rate cap guarantee available.

[1:40] Given that position, and MGS, marketed the city's group to a broader carrier market.

[1:47] United Health Care returned the most competitive offer, proposing medical pricing that is

[1:52] 4.4 to 13.7% below at Nuts Renewal, with matching plan designs at every tier and a 99.3%

[2:02] provider network match to the current at Nuts network. That means that employees would keep

[2:08] seeing the doctors they see today with minimal disruption. When dental vision life, AD and DH

[2:15] short-term disability and long-term disability are bundled with United, the combined package

[2:20] will unlock an additional 3% discount.

[2:23] In addition, United is also providing the city with a $40,000 on your what wellness budget,

[2:29] and a $1,000 $25,000 technology credit.

[2:33] That will help us with setting everything up with pay-com and transferring things over.

[2:39] Given this information, city staff's recommendation, based on the recommendation of

[2:43] natural marketing group services, is for the city council to approve United Health Care

[2:48] as our new insurance carrier and have human resources

[2:51] began the re-enrollment process.

[2:54] We had to call the meeting today's,

[2:56] but the reason I call this special meeting

[2:58] is precisely because we are out of time,

[3:01] we couldn't wait until the September council meeting,

[3:04] which is when we usually do the approvals,

[3:07] because we wouldn't have enough time

[3:08] to re-enroll everyone by the October first deadline.

[3:12] So I just wanted to let everyone know that.

[3:15] So joining us today is Michael Gonzalez,

[3:17] Vice President and Director of Operations for National Marketing Group Services, who will provide

[3:21] a brief presentation outlining the proposal and recommendation for the FY2627 employee benefits

[3:27] fund.

[3:30] Thank you.

[3:31] Good afternoon Madam Mayor, council members, Madam Manager, Deputy City Manager, City Attorney

[3:38] and City Clerk. My name is Michael Gonzalez. I'm with National Marketing Group Services.

[3:43] We are your insurance consultants. Thank you for your time today.

[3:47] matter manager, you pretty much stole all my thunder, with your breakdown there, but I'll walk you through, maybe some of the finer details of what's going on throughout this renewal process for us.

[3:59] So as a matter manager mentioned, the Edna Renewal came, initially actually came in at a 28% increase, we negotiated that down to 9.5%.

[4:10] from there, and that would not much further, despite all the analytics data we brought them,

[4:16] and the competitive proposals that we tried to leverage with them, they would not

[4:21] budget from 9.5%. Mostly due to, in my opinion, our latest claims experience in April was extremely

[4:29] high. Therefore, we took the account out to market. All viable carriers were proposed, and we landed

[4:37] on a deal with United Health Care that's coming in at between 13 and 14.6% below the

[4:44] under-renew. That is, with matching benefits, apples to apples and in addition to

[4:50] that network access for the employees, we'll remain where all the employees are at least

[4:56] most of them, except for our great CFO.

[5:00] Who is one provider out of 28 that I looked up was not in the network, but the rest are, matching 99.3%,

[5:13] after everything.

[5:15] Yes, that is a burden I will carry for the rest of the year.

[5:21] But the rest of the employees hopefully should find their providers all in that work.

[5:27] Again, matching benefits apples, apples and in some cases, improving benefits such as mental health copay,

[5:31] which is going from $40 to $20.

[5:36] In addition, our dental vision life and disability benefits

[5:39] are all remaining the same as well in terms of the actual benefits offered.

[5:43] However, we will see a savings on the dental of $13,900 for the year.

[5:48] An increase in the vision of $8,061,

[5:51] but is offset also by the life AD and the NLTD discount of $12,280.

[5:57] basically metting an ancillary savings of 17,220 for the year.

[6:06] Additionally, we will receive a 2.5% bundling discount for having all the plans bundled

[6:11] with one carrier, which aside from that 2.5% discount is also a logistical screenlining

[6:19] of benefits because, for example, on the short-term visibility, since we have medical

[6:24] with united and short-term with united, for example, maternity or deliveries, it will be something

[6:29] that are be coordinated seamlessly

[6:30] without any sort of interruption or delays

[6:35] in paying those payments.

[6:38] We will keep and maintain our $40,000 annual wellness budget

[6:43] and also obtain a $25,000 tech credit budget

[6:47] to help with the transition from carrier to permit

[6:50] to United.

[6:54] While the decision to move away from it

[6:56] after nine years was not an easy one.

[6:58] Trust me, we labored over this for a long time.

[7:02] The savings is just too great to pass up.

[7:05] The 14, roughly 14% is a big savings of the city, especially as we were talking about before

[7:12] on the budget meeting.

[7:15] We are not, we are keeping the same coverages for our employees, maintaining strong provider

[7:20] network access.

[7:22] I employ these contributions, we'll remain the same, so there's no increase to their costs.

[7:30] And that pretty much summarizes our recommendation, which at this time is to move to United

[7:35] Healthcare.

[7:37] I'll leave the floor open to questions.

[7:42] I just want to add one more thing.

[7:45] I think Michael researched also for us, the employees we had right now that were doing

[7:53] business out of network? Yes. And so there was a certain amount of claims that we have that

[8:01] employees right now, we're going out of network, right? That we're choosing providers and having

[8:08] treatments or doing medical sources outside of the network. And I believe 92.92.79% of the

[8:18] visits that are currently out of network will be in network with United.

[8:23] So those were the many reasons and many conversations we did take the

[8:32] atna negotiations all the way to the national level.

[8:35] I mean, like, we're very hard to try to get them to turn around.

[8:40] And that was just not the case.

[8:42] And it has a lot to do with utilization and we understand that.

[8:45] But I just, we feel that it is very comparable and that employees will be happy.

[8:51] And we also didn't want to consider raising anyone's payments.

[8:57] So I think this is the best decision that we can recommend.

[9:02] We'll quick.

[9:03] I would do it one to think.

[9:05] Maria and Rita and Lauren.

[9:08] Because we are we have been debating all this with them.

[9:14] And it is going to be a heavy lift for HR because we do have to re-enroll everyone.

[9:20] So, I am very happy to say they were very supportive and it is going to be a lot of work for them but they are ready and we think we can get all of this done seamlessly between now and October 1st and I want to thank Michael and his team because they have also been fantastic through this entire process.

[9:42] Thank you, madam manager. I just want to say a couple of things before I open it up to everybody

[9:47] And if anything has any questions

[9:49] I know this has been tough and everybody's always with the nervous about changing insurances

[9:53] I was suddenly nervous when I said it. We've been with enough for a really long time and so I know that each of

[10:00] We've absorbed those smaller increases, and I think we've even prepared this year to absorb a lot of 5% increase.

[10:07] But it really was just too high and too good of an opportunity being apples to apples.

[10:13] For Nando, it's just the sacrifices that we make as public servants for the people of Darrell.

[10:19] I have a good doctor, I can recommend, and she is on network as I checked.

[10:23] So, you know, it's something that is always hard for the employees because, you know,

[10:29] I was just sure it's so important.

[10:31] So, I know everyone did their their best.

[10:33] I even called the Etna, you know, upscale, I know you talked to them too, and really tried

[10:40] to push.

[10:40] We, you know, we didn't want to have to do that with our employees, but it was just too big

[10:46] of an absorption for the city at the percentage.

[10:49] So understanding all about, I want to thank you for the work you did and like sitting and showing that there would really be no interruption of service for most employees, separate Fernando.

[11:01] But, but I think that we'll be happy.

[11:04] My biggest concern was, you know, we make this whole move and next year, we end up getting hit with another, you know, they hit us in the end, they're kind of just like buying the plan.

[11:13] And I know there's no guarantees for that.

[11:15] It is what it is.

[11:16] I think we were very lucky as a city to be with it

[11:18] now for as long as we were without any major increases.

[11:22] So I guess we'll just take it year by year.

[11:24] But I think those savings will be well-utilized this year.

[11:27] It's one of the reasons we're able to do what you just

[11:29] saw as to whether our workshop and utilizing those funds

[11:33] to invest back into the community.

[11:35] So obviously, benefits and health insurance

[11:37] are important factors of how we retain and attract talented

[11:41] employees in our city and obviously something that's important to us. One of the things that

[11:48] this time to my understanding does better is mental health. Yeah, the mental health. The mental

[11:55] health copay for the plan that most of the employees are on about 280 employees are on. The copay

[12:02] is going down from $40 to $20. Perfect. I think you know that was one of the great benefits of this.

[12:09] So, you know, the EAP program also increased the face-to-face meetings for mental health from four face-to-face to five.

[12:18] Which is great.

[12:20] So, some added benefits there.

[12:23] And I believe that also the bundling, which gives additional life insurance and all these other things,

[12:28] I think we're looking at the pet insurance, right?

[12:31] So, all the bundling gives us additional savings.

[12:35] So, thank you very much for the hard work you guys do.

[12:38] I know your family's residents here.

[12:41] So I take this very much to heart.

[12:43] You guys feel a great job.

[12:45] We really appreciate the longstanding relationship we've had.

[12:48] And I know every year you guys I talk to

[12:50] Mayors across cities and stuff and even last night.

[12:53] I was with a couple.

[12:54] And they were telling me about increases that they get that sometimes they're

[12:58] They're agents don't even go out to shop and they're like absorbing 20%

[13:02] increases and stuff. So I told them they need to look at putting out a bid. Maybe piggybacking off

[13:09] of the draws. So thank you very much for the hard work you guys did and to all of our staff.

[13:14] I just want to make sure everyone feels comfortable that we really did the best and really looked

[13:18] at the opportunity to stay. But the plans are very, very, very, very comparable. So thank you for that.

[13:26] Any questions? Councilwoman Ritos? Good to have a mayor. So you know I have a background in

[13:32] also some administration. So if this language is quite easy for me to understand, and I think

[13:37] really the most important thing that we have to make sure that we are communicating is the

[13:43] services, the benefits that our employees will continue to have, although the name brand of the

[13:49] insurance is changing. Correct? Yes. And we never know what the future holds, but we can't stick

[13:59] with a company that is already was already going to charge us more and then being able to find

[14:06] just another reputable company that can do the same as not a little more and save the

[14:13] city money. So I think the time is appropriate. I really do hope that the benefits that we're

[14:21] giving the employees do stay mostly the same. And I do agree we couldn't pass on the savings

[14:29] It's just to keep the name of another insurance company or the same insurance company.

[14:33] So I think it is worth the risk to switch.

[14:36] So I would be voting for this.

[14:38] And I would like to start a motion.

[14:41] Yeah.

[14:42] Motion.

[14:43] Motion by Councilwoman Reno.

[14:44] So to.

[14:46] Oh, well, we need to.

[14:47] I'll read it all.

[14:48] I'll read it all.

[14:48] I'll manage it.

[14:49] I mean, the.

[14:49] It's a clerk to read it.

[14:51] It's the record.

[14:51] Sorry.

[14:52] I was in motion by Councilwoman Reno.

[14:53] So second by Councilwoman.

[14:54] Be made.

[14:55] Was there any additional questions?

[14:57] then okay.

[15:02] I'm going to read the item into the record. Mayer, and in 5A resolution, the Mayor of the City Council of City

[15:05] will travel forward, approving the United Health Care as the city's health, tent of vision, life,

[15:09] short-term, and long-term disability insurance. Ancillary certificates affect October 1, 2026.

[15:15] Authorizing the city manager does a need to execute all necessary documents to approve of the

[15:18] city attorney's reform and legal sufficiency, and to expel budget funds on behalf of the city

[15:22] and further into your off. Providing implementation and corporation of recitals and an affected date.

[15:26] Have a motion to approve by Councilman Reynolds seconded by Councilman Pinedo Councilman Reynolds.

[15:31] Yes. Councilman Pinedo. Yes. Councilman Poros. Yes.

[15:34] May I for our? Yes. Motion passes. All right. Thank you very much for your work.

[15:38] Thank you Council. Okay. I just need a motion to adjourn. Right. We have nothing to say.

[15:42] Motion to adjourn by Councilman Pinedo seconded by Councilman Reynolds. So I'm very excited.

[15:45] This meeting is adjourned. Thank you all very much. Have a great weekend.

SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING - HEALTH INSURANCE

Agenda

Transcript