CCMSD looks at benefits package

Soon after submitting a state grant application to provide hazard pay to staff who have served Crook County Medical Services District through the time of the pandemic, the attention of the board of trustees last week turned to the benefits package available to district employees.

With renewal time on hand for employees’ health insurance plans, CEO Micki Lyons informed the board that a survey had been sent out, looking at the compensation package as a whole. Board members acknowledged that the district is competing in the job marketplace in general, and also against larger facilities nearby, so an employee’s benefits are an important part of ensuring CCMSD is an attractive place to work.

While the overall response was that employees are “somewhat satisfied” with the package, Lyons said, there was a disappointing response to the question about whether CCMSD is better or worse than other employers a staff member has worked for.

“Unfortunately, we are worse,” she says, informing the board that this was the top answer. However, she noted that employees are happy with how far the district has come over the last few years in this regard.

Lyons said she has looked into possible improvements to the healthcare plan provided to employees and didn’t feel there were any that could feasibly be made. Premiums are already rising again this year, she said, and sticking with the current plan is going to increase the district’s expenses by roughly $45,000 annually, bringing the total expense to $525,000 per year.

“Honestly, our insurance is good,” said Lyons. “The fact that we are able to cover the cost of the employee’s premium on the high deductible plan is a huge benefit.”

Not providing benefits would mean losing employees, she said, a thought with which the board readily agreed. However, it will not be financially possible to, for example, reduce the cost for an employee to include their family on the insurance plan.

Trustee Sandy Neiman pointed out that this is not something other medical facilities usually seem to offer, so the district is not necessarily worse than alternative workplaces in that regard.

“Employees have to realize, we can only do so much,” said Neiman. “We’re trying.”

The main issue brought up in the comments section of the survey, Lyons said, was that employees would like to see a higher contribution from the district to their retirement plans.

“Reading the comments, it appears the thing we are lacking…is on the 401k match, because we’re not anywhere near competitive in the marketplace,” said Erickson.

He suggested that this is something the board will need to start “seriously talking about” in around April, when discussions of the next fiscal year’s budget begin.

The district’s contribution is 2% right now after “a lot of discussion” to reach that level, Erickson said, “but I think we’ve got to move it up again because it’s not even close to the industry.”

Erickson felt that an increase would be a more financially feasible improvement to the compensation package. Lyons agreed to prepare a cost analysis in time for discussions of next year’s budget.

A motion was also approved to accept a renewal of the current healthcare insurance plan for district employees.