11-22-1993 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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TO; FROM; DATE; Mayor and City Council Ron Moorse, City Administrator November 19, 1993 SUBJECT; Dental Insurance for Police Officers Background The Police Officer's contract includes a provision whereby the officers can use a portion the city's insurance contribution to pay the single premium portion of the cost of dental insurance coverage. This provision has not been used to this point because the officers have not requested that a dental plan be made available to them. In late 1992 the officers requested the City to institute a dental plan. At the time of the request a process was begun to select a carrier to provide the dental plan. During this process I found that the group of cities with which Orono participates for the joint purchase of health insurance is in the process of developing a request for proposals for dental insurance. Although this process will not be complete until sometime in 1994, it should result in significantly better dental insurance rates than Orono could obtain on its own. In the interim, in order to respond to the police request fot* a dental plan, I plan to select a dental plan to be made available to the officers for 1994 with the understanding that the city can change to a new plan if the RFP process results in a better plan. Cost to the City The Police contract provides that the officers can use a portion of the city's insurance contribution to pay for the single dental insurance premium. Those officers with family insurance coverage are already using the full insurance contribution, so there is no additional cost to the city. Because the contract also provides that those officers with single health insurance coverage may use the difference between the single health insurance coverage premium and the city's insurance contribution to purchase additional insurances, the provision of a dental insurance will not make additional dollars available to the officers.