HomeMy Public PortalAbout2011_tcwsmin1024Council Work Session October 24, 2011
Council Chambers, 25 West Market Street, 7:30 p.m. Mayor Kristen C. Umstattd
presiding.
Council Members Present: David S. Butler, Thomas Dunn, Katie Sheldon Hammler,
Marty Martinez, Ken Reid, Kevin D. Wright, and Mayor Umstattd.
Council Members Absent: None.
Staff Present: Deputy Town Manager Kaj Dentler, Town Attorney Jeanette Irby,
Human Resources Director Nancy Fixx, and Clerk of Council Lee Ann Green
AGENDA ITEMS
1. Work Session Items for Discussion
a. Commercial Truck Parking in Residential Neighborhoods
Jeanette Irby: Add to the second to the last sentence, the four hour
time limitation shall not apply to commercial vehicles that are loaded with
furniture and /or equipment to be unloaded within 48 hours so long as the
vehicle is parked at a location adjacent to the owner's property or the ultimate
destination.
Mayor: Or the property owned by the owner of the van. I think that
was the language that Kevin was recommending we add.
Irby: So, it would read, so long as the vehicle is parked at a location... a
particular location namely the owner or ... the owner of the vehicle's location
or the ultimate destination of the vehicle.
Mayor: Alright, now it could be in front of the house they are
moving ... it could take two days to move furniture into a van, theoretically.
So, there should be three options.
Irby: Penultimate location, the ultimate location, or adjacent to the
owner's location of the commercial vehicle.
Martinez: How about originating and destination.
Wright: She was trying to use more confusing legal words.
Irby: What, penultimate? That's my favorite word. No one knows
what it means.
Wright: I am pretty sure you made it up.
Irby: It means the step before the last one.
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years.
Mayor: Oooh, penultimate! Oh, I haven't been able to use that in
Wright: I'm going to find a way to use that work just to irritate people.
Irby: I'll figure it out, and we will be initiating it tomorrow, right? You
want to initiate tomorrow night?
Mayor: That'd be great. Does anybody have any other comments on
this one?
Dunn: Is there any language about just limiting it to one vehicle?
Irby: No.
Dunn: Is that something... cause otherwise we could have a fleet of
moving vans.
Irby: Well, if it's a home that had two van -fulls of furniture...
Dunn: But that would be ... we pretty much already know we are
covering the actual work site, because work is being done; but what we are
trying to avoid is having multiple commercial vehicles in residential areas and
we are saying the owner of the vehicle ... well the owner could own five moving
vans, but I don't think the neighbors would appreciate five moving vans.
Mayor: Well, you couldn't fit five right in front of the sellers house,
then the buyer's house ... well in some neighborhoods, you could fit two, I
agree.
Dunn: We are talking about really where it is being parked when it is
not in use for a move. Because moving ... we have got it covered. Unload,
unload a couple of days, we've got that, but it's the parking at the owner's
location when it is not in use and in this case, we are saying adjacent
to ... theoretically somebody could park it on the neighbors lot on either side
and then in front of their own house, I guess.
Mayor: it's a good point.
Dunn: But maybe not in front of their house because we don't say they
can park it in front of their own house, only adjacent to their property.
Butler: Why would the owner of the van (inaudible)?
Irby: Because you wouldn't want to park... for example, a vehicle full
of furniture in front of an empty home to unload it the next morning. You
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would probably want to park it in a location where there is actually somebody
there.
Mayor: That was what Greg Allen testified to ... they would feel more
secure if it is parked in front of a house that is occupied, so there are times
when they will bring it back.
Butler: In otherwise, it's an attractive nuisance kind of a thing.
Mayor: Yeah.
Dunn: I thought that their main concern was we are covering the work
site issue, but we are not really covering them parking it when it is not on the
job, which is at their home.
that.
Mayor: Yes, but I think the general language that precedes this, covers
Dunn: We are not limiting it to more than one vehicle.
Irby: Right, but they are not allowed to park it in front of their home if
it is not on the job anyway.
Dunn: Okay, where is it being parked at?
Mayor: Generally, they have an arrangement with a shopping center in
town. They park it in a shopping center, a commercial shopping center.
Dunn: But this though, doesn't really affect ... this could allow
somebody to park ... they could not park? Where does it say that?
Irby: No, it says no person shall park any commercial vehicle an excess
of four hours except while loading or unloading or while involving
construction work, so they cannot park a commercial vehicle anywhere in a
residential neighborhood an excess of four hours unless they are on the job.
Dunn: And your wording doesn't limit it ... because you said something
about ...adjacent to the owner's property.
Irby: The four hour time limitation shall not apply to commercial
vehicles that are loaded with furniture and /or equipment to be unloaded
within 48 hours so long as the vehicle is parked at a location of either the
owner of the vehicle, the destination or the origination.
Wright: They have to meet both criteria, it has to be full of stuff in
front of one of those three places.
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Irby: Technically, it is still on a job, but we are just making it clear.
Dunn: So, if its full of furniture, it could park in front of the truck
owners residence.
Irby: Yes, and the reason for that is so that it is not parked in front of
an empty house where it is going to be unloaded the next morning because
there would no one to watch the truck. And the owner can watch the truck.
Dunn: How do we know the truck is loaded?
Irby: Well, if the police come by and see a truck there for two days,
they can certainly ticket, and then the owner can fight the ticket or they can
ask the owner, if they want to.
Dunn: Okay.
Reid: I got here late, but we can't say commercial moving
vehicles... Dave just joked, but what if they are not moving ... ha, ha, ha. But
we can't use moving vans.
Wright: It's implied by loaded with furniture.
Reid: Alright, so we can't just say... so we don't have to like narrow it
to moving company... relocation....
Mayor: I think... Jeanette, what do you think?
Irby: I think we say commercial vehicles that are loaded with furniture
and /or equipment.
Butler: What if you moving yourself and you rented a truck?
Reid: That's not a commercial vehicle.
Irby: It is a commercial vehicle.
Reid: Oh, it is a commercial vehicle?
b. Health Insurance Bid Package Information
Nancy Fixx: I'd like to introduce to all of you ... I think most of you
have met him as he came in, this is Greg Snow who is our insurance
consultant that we have been working with now, for a little over two years. It
has been a great pleasure and he has done so much here to help the Town of
Leesburg and the employees.
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Council Work Session October 24, 2011
Mayor: Nancy, is this the gentleman who fought hard for us? Yes!
Excellent!
Greg Snow: Thanks for having me tonight. I am going to start off with
a little background and then the process that ... we are actually... it's going to
be released next week. So, I want to give you a little bit of background in what
we are doing over the next couple of months. Thank you all so much for your
business ... you all are great to work with and we love the folks here that we
work with. I was telling Nancy, that we need more clients like you and I really
do mean that. We have been working with the town for three years ... I think it
is. We have a great relationship and we appreciate the business. We were
hired three years ago to work with the town in management of medical,
dental, vision and disability programs. We provided consulting advice as it
relates to those programs and anything benefits related, etc. Two years ago,
with advice from us, we put the program out to bid. We selected Cigna
through that process for your medical and dental coverages. They were
selected, it was a good decision. The savings with Cigna was over $500,000 to
the town and the employees so it was a pretty significant savings. Anthem
ended up at about +8 and Cigna had a negative 4 as a result, so we had
negotiated rates that were actually decreased that year. The 2011 medical
renewal came out from Cigna and I was befuddled as I told their head
underwriter in Connecticut. They actually start out around 29, but at least
25.6% increase, as you can see here. I might put that on, so I can
highlight... from our analysis indicated that we should have been at around
12.5% with Cigna. Had many discussions /battles with them. Cigna
ultimately agreed to 16.8 %. We told them if they didn't get to 12.5, that we
were going to basically go through the emergency RFP process, which they
probably figured we couldn't get in that time. They were mistaken, so we
actually went to Anthem, because they were your number two selection last
year. We went to Anthem. We thought Anthem would be priced at around
10 %, I guess they didn't believe us. So Cigna came down to 16.8. Anthem
came in with a competitive proposal and I'll get into that in a second. The
dental renewal from Cigna had a 7% rate cap. But the communicated if they
lost the medical, they would remove the cap, understandably so. They talked
initially about a 50% increase. We had requested that they come down to at
least 25 %. They agreed, which is a pretty whopping increase on them, but we
have really competitive dental rates from Cigna. They have a network, they
were basically paying charges on the dental program, so it wasn't a surprise for
that increase. We did ask Anthem for a proposal. There was (inaudible) to the
employees just because the HMO product with Anthem, the network is not as
broad as Cigna's network was, but the discounts are a little bit steeper than
Cigna's. Folks did have an option of an Anthem PPO plan. There would be a
little disruption, but I think we have gotten very little feedback on that. And
folks do have a choice. Anthem has done a great job administering the
program in the past and they did a very good job with implementation. There
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are no real issues there. Their increase overall was 10.4, a little higher than I
projected, but they actually had enhanced benefits that brought it up slightly
and that was versus Cigna's best and final at 16.8. It was about a $600,000
savings over the Cigna initial renewal and over a quarter million dollars over
Cigna's best and final offer. The benefits are comparable, which you will see.
Obviously Anthem has a proven track record and offered the disease
management program. Maybe not as proactive as Cigna, but they still do a
good job on the wellness front. The Cigna general proposal, and you will see
(inaudible) down to 25 and would probably be priced higher than Anthem and
indeed was priced higher on the dental. It wasn't much of a difference and
some folks might say why don't we just roll the dental. I talked with Kathy
Elgin and we felt we had selected Cigna as a higher price versus Anthem,
so we decided to stay the same on the dental ... rates were slightly better and
the program has worked well. When I say good network. They really don't
have a network. Employees are free to go really anywhere they want. The
reimbursements that we set for Cigna when we first went into this program
then went to 901'' percentile, which basically 9 out of 10 doctors charges, so we
have had very little feedback from employees on dental. The difference
between Cigna and Anthem here ... also did provide out of pocket credit for
employees so that folks were protected with any out of pocket benefits they
had picked between the first six weeks ... you can see with the plan of the Cigna
HMO versus the Anthem HMO and you have some enhancements in the
preventive care ... a little better on the urgent care. The PPO plans... basically
the same story there although on the PPO plan as you can see, Anthem not
quite as rich. For example, hospital emergency room ... not quite as rich in
some of these areas but still a comparable program. Inpatient care $200 copay
versus a $250 per incident and 10 %. Not quite as rich, but when we look at the
savings of a quarter million and with that the folks particularly in the HMO
plan have comparable coverage. Other medical services, comparable. The
Anthem had a slight advantage on that, especially the eye exam. Cigna did
not cover routine eye exams. Anthem covers it for a standard copay. These
benefits do not .... very often but Anthem had some enhancements there. One
benefit was prescription drug, whereas Cigna was at a 15/30/50. Anthem is at
a 10130150 but then they've got this greater of...on that third tier, greater of 50
or 20% up to a maximum of $200. That does impact some folks that had some
very high cost drugs. There are going to be very few of those folks with
specialty drugs and that's just something that Anthem is doing on the
prescription drug program. I don't with some other clients. They have
very few folks that are hitting that, yet it is very painful for those few folks.
That's a continuing discussion we had with Anthem. I don't know why_
those decisions when they aren't saving any money, but causing all the pain to
a few consumers. So, I don't think we are going to see ... I would say less than
a handful that will be affected by that. However, on the Anthem HMO, it was
a point of service and it did have out of network coverage, which certainly
helps protect employees if they go out of the network... they still have very
good coverage under the Anthem HMO plan if they did not chose the HMO
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plan. So, overall I think the plans are very comparable in coverage. There is
going to be some winners and losers depending on the services.
Reid: Which costs the town more?
Snow: On the network plan? The Anthem plan is about ... I mean the
Cigna plan is about $234,000 more expensive.
the....
Reid: More expensive? Is that more expensive to the employees or to?
Snow: That was in full.
Reid: So how much would be the taxpayers paying of that, versus
Snow: I forget what the split was.
Fixx: I don't have it with me either.
Reid: So, Cigna was $234,000 more?
Snow: Yes. Which is ... Anthem on page 4 and . The dental
plan wasn't going to change and this just outlines the Dental plan. Nothing
has changed in here. This is a good basic dental program and we have not
made any change to that... So that brings us to the task force. We decided to
select Anthem this year and to maintain the dental program with Cigna. The
procurement will require that we go back out to bid this year because under the
emergency provisions, you have a contract for a year. So, we will be putting
the medical and dental programs out to bid. The objective for this coming
renewal, which will be for July 2012, and what we are going to focus on is
certainly networks and the capabilities making sure that we minimize any
disruption to employees. If there is disruption, we will know exactly where
that disruption is. Flexibility in plan designs and being able to mirror the
current plan designs. Plan administration, customer service. We will have
certain questions in the RFP process that will look at results
administration. _ delivery of wellness and disease management programs
that becomes part of our analysis and is scored in the final run. Certainly total
costs, utilization, reporting ... we want to make sure that we get appropriate
reporting so that we can report back to you how the program is operating on
an ongoing basis and then the disruption-as I mentioned. At the bottom here,
these are the carriers we are going to go to. We are going to any carrier that
can submit a full insured proposal to the Town of Leesburg. So, we will give
everybody the opportunity to go through that process. The timeline ... we are
working with Kathy now and we anticipate that we will be releasing the RFP
next week. We will give carriers approximately three weeks to respond to that
and then we will spend the next month, December. I doubt we will be able to
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get together with we are going to present that back to the committee the
early part of January and we will conduct finalist meetings over that next
week, finalize decisions the week after that and then prepare our presentation
to the members here on February 6 or 20th. I think I do have those dates right.
I think those are the Monday's in February. If that date needs to change, we
can certainly update the time line. So, how long we will have a decision at
that point. We will start to develop communications after the decision is made
to help get any program, whether it is renewing as is or changing carriers to a
new open enrollment... communicate that to employees and have an effective
date of July 1 and make sure that any employees have new ID cards under the
carrier system prior to the effective date.
A little history, a recap if you will. Then, what our objective is for this
upcoming meeting. Any questions?
Hammler: Do you want me to start here in the middle? I don't mind
jumping in. Thank you for the update. I know a number of us last budget
cycle cited this as one of the most important line items in our budget given the
uncontrolling cost that were spiraling out of control. I know one thing that
wasn't covered here is literally what is the cost ... you have listed a lot of
percentages, but it would be good to review where we have been and where
the costs have been heading in terms of actual dollars. That aside, I think one
of the important things that I was hoping we would be moving towards is
some way to get economies of scale that we are not seeing. The economy of
Purcellville is 6,000 yet the benefit of being able to be part of a co -opted group
so they get much lower costs to their employees. We are somehow caught in
this middle where we can't seem to get a handle on our healthcare costs. So, is
that not something you can support us with?
Snow: There have been municipalities in Virginia who have joint
purchased and come together as a larger group, so there are some of those that
do exist in Virginia. We have done some of those project analysis and
feasibility. Some have actually joint purchased, some have decided not to for
various reasons, so if there is interest of other municipalities, it's typically
regional in nature in coming together. We can help facilitate a feasibility
discussion and potentially a project. Some have done that successfully and
some have decided not to for various reasons. There is advantages and there is
disadvantages to that depending on who the other entities are. Certainly, if
you are looking at a Loudoun County and the Town of Leesburg, I would
assume you would probably lose much of your autonomy and decision making
because they would dominate that process for you all, so...
Reid: You mean the county? If we went in with the County plan, is
that what you are saying?
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Hammler: It's not going to be that different, I would imagine, in terms
of the benefits that would be offered because many of these things are very
standard ... I mean even working in a private high -tech company, they are very
standard services so to the extent that we might be able to realize significant
cost savings, I'm just surprised that hasn't been brought forth.
Snow: You may not realize savings depending on the feasibility of
how...
Hammler: I guess the question is why don't you present it? So you
don't know. Certainly logic would dictate that if there is economies of scale
that we could somehow point towards cost savings... so that would be
something I would appreciate knowing. Is that a possibility? Two, what are
the real numbers because there were no numbers presented, just percentages
and finally, if we could get information on the exact cost of the consulting that
you provided over the last three years, I would appreciate it.
Wright: Just a couple of questions. One, I believe Katie's question was
asked and answered, maybe prior to when she got on Council. We used to be
in partnership with the County and found it to be more cost effective to come
out of that partnership. So, while it may... reasonable, make sense... doesn't
work in Virginia, usually doesn't work with health insurance either. There is a
reason why we are on our own plan, it was actually more cost effective, so
perhaps that history for those that weren't around...
Hammler: But, I would argue that at this point, a lot has happened in
the world of healthcare to the extent that may have been true and it may still
be true ... we do know that these are uncontrolled rising costs and I think we
need to review how we get ourselves in a better position.
Mayor: And Mr. Snow is going to get, in just a little bit, to the
healthcare reform and...
Wright: I believe you have more of your presentation, so knowing the
way that we ask questions, I might suggest you might want to go through and
put everything on the table and then let us throw rocks at you.
Snow: Okay, there's not much left. The slide ... we did a bench mark
study for Fauquier County schools this past year and the Town of Leesburg
was asked to participate in that. Fauquier County schools picked the
participants they wanted to participate in the survey, so when we looked at the
data and we did the analysis, you all may look at this and say it's interesting,
but it's not really who we would compete against. I caution you when you
look at the scorings and rankings. When you look at that, you might say we
want to see how we compare to a City of Manassas or a City of Manassas Park
or maybe Prince William County. Certainly, I don't think you are going to
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want to compare it to Chesterfield County or Henrico County. Fauquier
wanted to include them in their survey because they were larger entities and
they were interested in getting that data. We did go out and did a survey. We
had 12 respondents on the County /City side for the survey. What we did is
we looked at certain benefits that were important for Fauquier County. We
worked with them and they weighted how much or how important each of
these benefits were so when we did our rankings and scoring they were
weighted by importance. You can see here, the Town of Leesburg overall
benefits ranking ... you then ranked too favorably, you ranked 10"' out of 12,
most of that was driven by employee cost. Again, that may or may not be
applicable to you all when you look at some of the other entities you compete
with. I am not sure whether you compete with Fauquier County. This might
be interesting, it might be relevant. We then had Fauquier County because we
did not do any compensation work. We asked them to give us ... they had a
compensation specialist who did a study and they ranked these
participants ... how they thought they benchmarked on the compensation. You
did favor much more from a compensation study. The comp was weighted
60% and 50 %, you can see on your ranking. As we weighed comp and
benefits, 50 %. Most folks would weight compensation 60 and benefits 40.
You ranked 7 out of 12. So, that's in the middle of the pack. That may or
may not be where you want to be and the data may or may not be perfect, but
we had provided that information back to all who originally participated in the
study, so we wanted to provide that information to you. You can see areas
where you compare less or more favorably in the study. There is about a
work that we provided back when you look specifically if there is an area
where you compete less or more favorably, we can actually view the data and
know why you did or didn't. The data is very detailed. So, if there is any
interest in that, we can certainly pull in the data. Also, if this is a type study
you would want to have done and want to do your own private benchmarking
study, using your own participants we would do a survey in the future. That is
just an outline for information on the team that works with the Town of
Leesburg. My clients, , I know Nancy and Jeanette are more familiar
because they get our advisory works in the middle of November
presenting an overview of national healthcare reform. _ just a little back
ground. Those folks you would have to see more often than others. We bring
in our actuaries to do the GASB evaluation as we need more assistance on
that. We are not doing a GASB evaluation now, but we would be glad to take
that on in the future. That's just a little background on Wells Fargo. Not sure
you all want to go through that. I can just tell you that from a financial
standpoint, we are incredibly solid. From our business standpoint and what
we do in Richmond, we are fourth, obviously in the country and we have a lot
resources and depth for our clients and we are able to provide those resources
to you all. Our office in Virginia has about 16 folks. We have been in Virginia
since 1993 with _. Just a little based on our services, obviously working on
strategies. Both plans on communications are feasible. Compliance. We
work with you on a ongoing... certainly healthcare reform is another area we
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are starting to look at the impact of 2014... starting to work with clients on the
impact and that's why we are having our attorney come and discuss that. I
will be discussing your team and specific impacts to the town and will be
monitoring that and providing you with advice in early 2012 for the changes
that are coming in 2014 so we will be well ahead of 2014 changes. That's our
next big change in the law right now. The actual changes occurred in 2011.
Certainly, we will focus on renewals and providing budget estimates, tracking
your claims, doing the underwriting, handling the negotiations, working on
contribution strategies, communication strategies, etc. in developing this
analysis for you. _ Analysis and Marketing. We work with your staff and
with Kathy helping to develop the REP document, if it was issued here. We
will get all the feedback, do a complete analysis, provide the reports back to the
benefits committee and help them through that selection process.
Communications, just working on different normal communications strategies.
We have a couple of strategies that we will be working on for 2012. One of
those is an enrollment work book which will be a communication piece that
will roll out all the benefits that are offered, not just the medical and dental
program, but VRS, and any other benefits that you all offer. We will be
working on that this next year. Then, year in review. We need to review cost,
event, and performance, etc. We will provide that. The last part is just an
overview for you all that is in your packets but not up here in the presentation
is a time line for National Healthcare reform, so you can see what is going
on ... or what has occurred and what's going on for 2012. Certainly, W2
reporting, the standard communications that will need to come out. I know
your staff as well will be working on W2 reporting of healthcare costs. The
standard communications that will need to come out. The Fed guidance on
what needs to be communication on healthcare, we will start in March. The
Fed is still getting feedback to figure out where they are going to go with that,
before they issue primary guidance and since you are are being provided
with those standard communications to you all as a client. The other piece
that's in there ... that second piece is just an update that we just came out with
at the end of September. It's a lot to go through this evening, but it has just
been outlined step by step ... the different impacts of health care reform. We
will be working on this with all of our clients here over the next seven months
and given that, so we are gearing up for healthcare reform in 2014
Wright: On our wellness programs, do we have any sort of kind of
offset for participation so if you participate in certain levels of the wellness
program, you may qualify for an offset in the deductibles or anything along
those lines?
Snow: Not today.
Dunn: Or reduced premiums?
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Snow: Not today.
Wright: In general, I did want to thank you for your efforts in dealing
with our renewal. I know a lot of insurance providers tend to want to take
advantage when they think they have kind of got you cornered, so I
appreciated the hard work and making clear we were not cornered and
providing that savings to both our employees and our taxpayers. I look
forward to what the next round brings.
Snow: Just a quick point on the wellness front, we do have a national
practice that is dedicated to wellness and creating strategies that we have really
invested some time in. There are some programs that we can start to roll out
with clients for actual clients to have them hire a nurse to do outreach to
employees. You are fully insured, so it is very difficult, if not impossible to get
some of the data that is needed because of the HIPPA laws and the carriers
will not provide that information back, but we also have worked with some
clients, not going brick and mortar, but we call it building on site clinics where
they are actually contracting with hospitals with nurse practitioners and
physician oversight to build onsite clinics and we have seen some phenomenal
results out of that. The only reason I bring it up is if we are working on
strategies to try to bend that curve in healthcare costs, that is labor intensive
from a staffing ... it takes a lot of work to do it right. One of the questions that
came up when we were ... folks the old school method of giving folks money to
do things has not worked well, but we still can incent folks to try to practice
better behavior or at least try to get them engaged in their healthcare and a lot
of the strategies that we have implemented with clients have been if you do
there is a reduced healthcare premium, if you don't, there is an increased
premium. Clients have taken the standpoint of folks that comply are in the _
plan, if not, they are in the less . Those are . We are trying to get folks
engaged in wellness. When I say engaged, I mean more than 85% of
employees. Typical engagement has not worked for years. So, we decided we
were going to start to look at strategies and . That would be part of our
ongoing discussions with your management team.
Hammler: In follow -up to that, I think the good news is we have
unbelievable resources in the Town of Leesburg when it comes to ... there is
kind of no excuse to not doing great things from a wellness perspective with
Ida Lee and with their staff to just get creative. There is a lot of macro
information... like the other day ... you are already doing great things, getting
out walking, but ... Kaj, Mr. Marathon Runner, we can probably figure out
how to get people motivated and that would be great for everybody.
Snow: I think the three steps to bring awareness. It means that it is
engagement, which is what we would like to try to get done. It is a lot of work
to get there. The third step, which is long term, is improvement. If we are
going to help reduce our health care costs, there are a lot of _, we need to get
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those engaged. We need to have the tools and resources there for them to
improvement their health. It takes a lot of work to get there. I think a lot of it
works intuitively. When they ask you does it save money, a lot of folks would
say it does. There are studies out there showing that there is some return on
investment of about 3 -1. So, if you can bend that healthcare curve by 1 -2
percentage points per year and reduce your costs, certainly that does help your
premiums.
Hammler: But my point is it is not necessarily about looking at
percentage points and big macro concepts and national models. We have got
great resources here. Let's do it.
Butler: Thank you for the presentation. This is excellent.
Reid: Likewise, thank you for being here. Thank you for your work. I
appreciate it.
Dunn: Thank you. So, you are saying on the wellness programs, it's
not even an option that you all are offering at this time?
Snow: You mean wellness programs built into that you have that
Anthem can help support. There are some additional steps that you could take
strategically to hopefully get folks engaged and start providing improvement
that we'd like to work with you all and we have resources on that. They are
going to take some time. They are very labor intensive to put in place. They
are not inexpensive to put in place, but if you are going to do it right, it does
take time.
Dunn: Do you have any... if you can go back to that Fauquier County
benchmark study slide ... do you have any data on how we compare in the
usage of our insurance compared to other communities?
Snow: That would... utilization bears out in the rates, so we do have in
that data actual total rates, so there is some comparative analysis there. That
is in the data that we have. We can certainly provide it.
Dunn: Each one of these communities are obviously different rates?
Because I am noticing if you look at ours, basically it is saying that the
employees are not thrilled with their cost of the insurance, but ...
Snow: Employee contributions are higher than the other participants
there.
Dunn: So, if you can basically make it through Leesburg healthy as an
employee, the benefits are great at retirement. So stay healthy and retire well,
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basically. But, we don't have the ability at this point to give them a benefit for
wellness. We could improve on that.
Snow: You can provide some wellness benefits. There is no dollar
amounts. You may — here and there, but...
Dunn: Okay, great. Thank you.
Snow: I would be glad to work with some of your team when I come
back and have a strategy on wellness and let you know a little about what we
are doing.
Martinez: Can I make an assumption? The localities that have lower
employee contributions means that the locality may place a higher value on
their employee's health and with the wellness programs?
Snow: They certainly are charging the employees less. I'll provide you
all with what those dollars actually are.
Martinez: I'm assuming that you are basing this on a percentage versus
actual dollar values.
Snow: We are placed on actual dollars because if you are recruiting
employees, they don't care about percentages but they want to know...
Martinez: Well, I am talking about these rankings. I mean ... well we
can get into that...
Snow: This is employee contributions. That is purely what the
employees pay for coverage on a monthly basis. It was based on dollar
amounts, but you might be surprised by the difference between number 1 and
1 I seems this broad, but it might only be this broad. Fauquier County is very
generous.
Martinez: I appreciate your presentation and the information on
the... it's a good summary of the health program reform. I appreciate that,
thank you.
Mayor: Thank you very much for fighting so hard for us. I know John
Wells was really impressed with how aggressive you are with Cigna, so I
appreciate it.
Snow: They may not like me, but they respect us at least.
Mayor: That's all that matters.
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Council Work Session October 24, 2011
C. State Funding for Urban Road Maintenance
Mayor: Anything more on that? We have sent the letters out...
Dentler: The letter is a draft starting point. Let us know what you
would like us to do with it and we will have it ready for you tomorrow night.
Reid: I think it's great. You are going to laugh, but I wish you could
add a line about having the state save some money on its own by putting more
emphasis on concrete than asphalt, but I am sure that nobody wants to take
that on.
Butler: I think that's a little too detail oriented.
Reid: It's in the weeds, but it makes the letter more concrete.
Butler: I think the letter is fine the way it is.
Wright: Personal foul.
Dunn: Drive On!
Hammler: Two quick suggestions on the way to down the weeds. For
me, it would be helpful if we stated in the first sentence, what are we asking...
not just sort of background. There has been significant discussion rather, we
respectfully request that you, in this case, do not introduce legislation.
Mayor: I think that's good.
Hammler: So, state up front what our requested action is and in
closing, the last paragraph, if we are suggesting that there be an active role for
localities in ongoing discussions, what specifically are we requesting? I think
the more specific we are, the more we might be able to get what it is we are
asking ... I'm not even sure what that means and what avenue that would be
and what form it would be, but if we could say we want our mayor to be a
representative of, or whatever, I would suggest we be specific. Otherwise,
great and thank you for doing it. Madam Mayor, thank you for being already
one step ahead and having sent that letter off to the governor. I really
appreciate that.
Wright: First, I wanted to thank everybody for kind of seeing this and
trying to get a head of it. Gratefully since this letter, I continue to be
fascinated in the various ways we look to address the transportation issue and I
almost took a picture, now granted considering it's a great place to go take
pictures of roads and if John were here he would agree with me
wholeheartedly, but we had the opportunity and I think most of the car
survived it to drive over a road that was going through a road ...basically
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Council Work Session October 24, 2011
reconstruction project... and what we were thinking about was in all the time
we have driven up there in 20 years, we have never seen the road paved, so in
the course of not maintaining that road, the road go so bad that you had to do
a full-blown rebuild of the road, which costs more money. So, stealing from
maintenance to pay for construction is basically kicking the can down the
road. At some point, the state really has to look at their funding sources and
have the difficult discussion instead of the kicking the can down the road
discussion.
Mayor: Nice point.
Martinez: A question I had on the maintenance fees ... are we just
talking about our local roads, or we talking about roads like Sycolin Overpass
or the ones that are coming up to be built?
Mayor: That's a very good question that you would hope the state
would factor in ... the ongoing maintenance costs of every new road and plan
for that, but right now we are talking about the maintenance fees...
Martinez: of the current infrastructure? Because my great concern is
that once we start down this path, who knows what else we will have to
maintain. I have no problem with the Sycolin overpass being built, but I
would not like the idea that as part of their forecast is the town is to maintain it
as a way to afford to build it. So...
Wright: One follow on to Marty's point there, is if they are really going
to look at taking away our annual maintenance payments, then fine, tell me
the new standard. If we are currently expected to maintain the road at x-
standard, if you reduce the funding for maintenance, then that would assume
we are maintaining the roads at a lower standard, so please advise what that
lower standard is. That may be what that last sentence is. So, if you are going
to reduce ... and that's what they are expecting and quite frankly what a lot of
municipalities have done, they are just expecting us to fill in the gap and we
can't afford to no more than they can afford to. So, either identify a funding
source or re- identify the standard, but just know that based on how lax that
standard may become, you may be creating a significant cost 20 years down
the road as the roads degrade to the point that they have to be rebuilt.
Martinez: The other thing is that if we end up having to continue this,
there is going to be a delay in time to ramp up to start maintaining the roads at
whatever standard they want us to ... so I am happy with the letter, but as a
council other leads and VML need to take into consideration what exactly are
their strategies for these roads and how are we going to maintain them. It's
frustrating to me to sit there and promise me a road and not knowing whether
they are going to take care of it or we are.
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Council Work Session October 24, 2011
Mayor: My own suspicion and Kaj .... maybe Calvin has a sense of
whether we are required to maintain at any particular standard, but my own
suspicion is if they are cutting maintenance funds, they don't give a hoot about
the condition of our roads and their position will be if you want your roads
maintained at a certain level, then you pay for it. But I don't know if there is
any particular set of maintenance standards they impose on us or...
Wright: Are they guidelines?
Mayor: are they guidelines? Yeah.
Martinez: That would be kind of ironic to have us pay for the roads
and then get fined because we don't maintain up to a standard that they...
Hammler: Keep in mind, we are maintaining these roads in order for
there to be 50 -80 thousand cut through trips every single day, which gets back
to the number one problem, which is cut through traffic and its impact on
residential neighborhoods. So, we may find we want to put up barricades
around the entire town or city until we get a little attention at the state...
Martinez: Or have the ability to charge tolls to come in and out.
Hammler: We will get creative in our grass roots response.
Martinez: So everyone having a to tell people from Maryland
coming in and out. That's another dollar...
Wright: Three dollars.
Mayor: I wish.
2. Additions to Future Council Meetings
Mayor: I know Kaj, you had sent out an email. Did the Council plan to take
up the Catoctin Circle barricade issue in November, remind me.
Dentler: On the current schedule, November 14 is work session for that item
and the 15' is consideration for action, just based on previous discussions the Council
had. If you want a different schedule, please let us know so we can advertise
appropriately to let all residents know.
Wright: And that's following the community meeting on November 2nd
Martinez: And when is the construction due to be completed?
Dentler: For everything?
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Council Work Session October 24, 2011
Martinez: For everything.
Dentler: 2014.
Wright: I think he meant for Catoctin Circle.
Dentler: Catoctin? There were 11 items that were left. Most of them are
done. I couldn't tell you exactly which ones...
Martinez: I guess what I am getting at, by the time we meet again, it will be
complete.
Dentler: mainly the wall on Edwards Ferry is the biggest thing. A few other
minor things. Very, very small.
Reid: I have to leave. The issue about ... we had a memo about Battlefield
Parkway. If we could have that discussion on the 14"', that would be good.
Butler: Yeah, we got a memo a few months ago, right? I'll move to raise the
speed limit.
Dentler: Can I just assume that the schedule is still... for Lowenbach?
Mayor: That's my assumption unless I see negative head shaking.
Butler: I think that it is fine. I just want to make sure we include a work
session on the 14' or 15`'
Dentler: 14th. So, we will have that scheduled.
Hammler: Kaj, you got my email back? I should have changed the subject
heading because it was under the agenda, but the list that we gathered from... so thank
you, Wendy so much for having all of us who showed up ... there was a couple of key
items, most notably looking at how long it would take to get that warranty study and
the four way stop and some feedback on the speed cushions.
Butler: As part of all this, I would like to set up a meeting with staff to talk
about potential for mini - roundabouts in those intersections. I know staff doesn't want
to do it because it is outside their comfort zone, but a lot of other cities and countries
do it, so I would like to talk about it to see what the impact might be, because I think
there is potentially tremendous traffic calming benefits for everybody.
Wright: Dave, is that an individual meeting with staff or a work session?
Butler: An individual meeting.
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Council Work Session October 24, 2011
Mayor: Dave, I think you were thinking Blue Ridge and Catoctin Circle ... is
that one of the locations as a for instance?
Dunn: I'll be late or missed depending on how short the meeting is tomorrow
with my son's play off game. It should be a short meeting tomorrow, so I may not be
able to make it.
Hammler: What sport?
Dunn: Football.
3. Adjournment
n The meeting was adjourned at 8:22 p.m.
Clerk
2011 to
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