City OKs bonus for employees

Lower-than-expected insurance rates for Holton city employees will not only mean lower monthly insurance premiums this year for them — they’ll also be getting a one-time bonus thanks to the Holton City Commission.

On a 4-1 vote during the city’s commission’s regular meeting on Monday, commissioners approved a one-time “return of savings” to city employees based on the savings that the city is experiencing this year due to a 6.34-percent decrease in Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance premiums for this year — the first time that’s happened since 2012, as Holton City Manager Teresa Riley and the commissioners noted.

With the savings in BCBS insurance premiums for the year — Riley said that amounted to $73,353.72, based on the city’s budgeting for a 15-percent increase in the premiums — it was suggested by Holton Mayor Tim Morris that some of those savings should be returned to city employees, as was done in 2012, the last time the city experienced a decrease in insurance premiums.

“We’ve done it before, and I felt like it helped,” Morris said.

Riley said the amount of the savings on this year’s insurance premiums would be halved, with $36,676.86 to be returned to employees and the rest to “add to the pot for cost of living increases the following year.”

That means the 39 city employees who get BCBS insurance through the city — which pays about 80 percent of its employees’ premiums, it was reported — will each receive an $894.56 bonus, while four other city employees who get their insurance from another source will receive $447.28 each.

Commissioner Marilyn Watkins said the savings on insurance premiums should be passed onto city employees as a means of “trying to keep good, steady employees here… Anytime we get a break like this, I’m all for giving it to the employees, because without them, we’ve got nothing, whether it’s city staff or the guys out in the field.”

Commissioner Eric Bjelland agreed, saying the one-time bonus should be treated as “an incentive” that the city uses to “take care of those who show up for us.” But commissioner Tim Schlodder, who voted in opposition to the return of savings to city employees, said that money belonged to “the taxpayers” rather than the employees.

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