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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes 09-11-2012 APPROVED 10/16/2012 MINUTES ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS WORK SESSION September 11, 2012 7:OOpm The Orange County Board of Commissioners for a Work Session on Tuesday September 11, 2012 at 7:00 p.m. at the Link Government Services Center in Hillsborough, NC. COUNTY COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Commissioners Valerie Foushee, Alice M. Gordon, Barry Jacobs, Pam Hemminger, and Steve Yuhasz COUNTY COMMISSIONERS ABSENT: Chair Pelissier and Commissioner McKee COUNTY ATTORNEY PRESENT: John Roberts COUNTY STAFF PRESENT: County Manager Frank Clifton, Assistant County Managers Clarence Grier and Michael Talbert and Clerk to the Board Donna S. Baker (All other staff members will be identified appropriately below) Commissioner Hemminger (Vice-Chair) is chairing the meeting tonight because Chair Pelissier, Commissioner McKee, and Frank Clifton are traveling back from Bloomington. 1. Review of the Draft Oranqe County Strateqic Information Technoloqy Plan Shannon Tufts, from the School of Government, made a PowerPoint presentation. Technology is the vehicle from which accurate, reliable, and timely information is produced for: strategizing, identifying objectives, improving productivity, and facilitating service delivery Technology is ... Citizen Relationship Management Services •45+ Online Services •ARIES Mobile App •Parks Locator App •Addressing Services •Tax System Implementation •PIN/TMBL/Parcel Lookup Tool •Subscription Services •Streaming Video •Wifi Hotpots County Operational Services •Security Enhancements •Training Room •Mobile Email Support •Telephony •Increased Device Deployment •Service Request Improvements Priority Ranking Description Level One A Level One project should be started within the next year in order to meet critical business support requirements. Level Two A Level Two project should be started within the next two years in order to further citizen and employee impact needs. Level Three A Level Three project should be assessed and started within the next three years to ensure innovation and technological advancement are occurring within Orange County. Internal County Operational Recommendations County: Number of Staff IT Operating Budget IT Operating Total IT IT Capital Budget in Department: (Personnel) Budget (Non- Operating Personnel) Budget Cabarrus 21 FTEs $1.678 million $1.875 million $3.56 million None noted Catawba 27 FTEs $1.586 million $1.948 million $3.534 million $1.1 million (licensing and upgrades) Durham 33 FTEs $2.6 million $1.07 million $4.39 million $1.7 million (lifecycle replacement for all IT equipment) Pitt 32 FTEs $2.342 million (MIS) + $895,402 (MIS) $3.3285 million Fluctuates between $299,013 +$219,103 (MIS) + $538,103 �$100K-$500K (GIS)=$2.64 million (GIS)=$1.115 (GIS)=$3.867 annually b/c Pitt Co million million uses a loan strategy for all large capital expenditures (larger outlay every 3 years) Orange 14.7 FTEs $1.193 million $920,260 $2.113 million $500,000 (lifecycle replacements, etc Internal Operations: Priority Level One Technology Investments (should be accomplished within the next year): -Increase IT Staffing Levels -IT Governance Council -Communications Process Improvement -Training for County Staff -Shared Accountability and Authority Staffing Needs 1. Network Engineer 2. GIS Addressing Administrator 3. SharePoint Administrator (newly identified) 4. Applications Systems Analysts Internal Operations: Priority Level One (cont) Technology Investments -Computer and Network Replacements -Connectivity and Network Expansion -Fire and EMS Systems -SAN Expansion -Virtual Server Shelves and Physical Servers -MS Office/ Upgrade/ELA Priority Level Two Technology Investments (should be started within the next two years) -Required Use of Technology -Business Relationship Managers -ITIL -SLAs -Project Justification Methodology -Performance Metrics Internal Operations: Priority Level Three (should be started within the next three years) -Location of GIS -Virtual Desktop Infrastructure -Standardized Applications and Data Citizen Engagement Investment Recommendations Citizen Engagement: Priority Level One -Website Improvements -Comprehensive Licensing, Planning, and Inspections Software -Paperless Agendas and Tablets -Recording of All Meetings -Social Media Engagement Citizen Engagement: Priority Level Two -Increase field-based applications -Public Comments via Technology -Increase Access to High- Speed Internet/Cellular -Mobile Applications -Real-time GIS Access At the end of the day... Orange County should view IT investments as creators of strategic value, not simply costs to be controlled Shannon Tufts said that Information Technology staff is the most critical component and if it comes down to money, this is where funding needs to go. Commissioner Yuhasz said that Shannon Tufts pointed out that they need more training. Shannon Tufts said that the way she would think about training is that there is some excellent online training at low cost, such as Microsoft software and it is not an Information Technology issue, but an HR issue. She said that people probably only use 15% of the capacity of what the technology can do. Commissioner Jacobs asked about the connection point between the Board of County Commissioners' goals and the governance committee (pages 19-20) and how to get from the goals to the governance. Shannon Tufts made reference to Appendix B, Project Prioritization and Management, and said that every project should align with the goals. The issue is to justify the projects through the goals with a rubric. Commissioner Jacobs said that he went to two County department websites and there is no email address for the public to actually send an email to the department. He said that this seems like a basic thing to do. Chief Information Officer Todd Jones said that they have confederated authoring and each individual department has a webmaster. IT has provided a lot of inechanisms for being able to do this. Some departments have not done this even though it is an easy thing to do. Commissioner Jacobs said that he has not seen the internal social networking policy for employees. He said that he has seen court cases that are coming up where employees have "liked" something on a Facebook page and were subsequently fired. Todd Jones said that it is on the Orange County intranet under "Policies." He said the Orange County social media policy is more geared toward how to set up a departmental social media account. Commissioner Yuhasz asked about the departments that do not have email addresses on their websites and how this can be facilitated. Financial Services Director Clarence Grier said that he would provide direction. He said that he is reviewing the staff needs for Information Technology and the proposed eight employees from the IT Strategic Plan would cost about $650,000. He will bring this forth in the budget process. He is also looking at larger screens for desktops. Commissioner Hemminger asked clarifying questions about fiber optics, which were answered by Todd Jones. Commissioner Gordon said that two County Commissioners are not here and she would like for them to have this PowerPoint. Shannon Tufts said that she would email it to the Clerk to forward to the other Commissioners. Commissioner Hemminger said that she is so impressed with how much the Information Technology department has done with limited resources. Commissioner Gordon made reference to the communication strategy and asked about the relationships between the new Public Information Officer and the IT staff. Shannon Tufts said that from a Chief Information Officer standpoint, there is some interconnectivity in that Information Technology provides the tools and the PIO would own the content, branding, and structure. Commissioner Gordon said that there are some basic communication tools that you need and there are a lot of human factors that need to work together. She asked about the ideal way for this to work. Shannon Tufts said that IT is providing a support service for the PIO to deliver the communication strategy that has been defined. The tool delivery is the domain of IT. 2. Employee Benefits Updates and Preliminary Recommendations Reqardinq Calendar Year 2013 Health Insurance Modifications Clarence Grier said that there is a revised abstract for this issue. He said that staff looked at the possibility of being self-insurance. At this time there is not enough data, so the proposal is to renew with United Health Care. Human Resources Director Nicole Clark made a PowerPoint presentation. � Employee Benefits Update and Preliminary Recommendations for the 2013 Health Insurance Renewal � September 11, 2012 Background � Orange County provides employees with a comprehensive benefits package � Health, dental, vision, life; flexible benefit compensation; employee assistance program; paid leave; contributions to the Local Government Employees' Retirement System and other supplemental retirement plans � Effective January 1, 2012 UnitedHealthcare became the County's provider of health insurance � Point of Service and HSA � Benefits information provided at previous meetings and work sessions during the month of June � FY 2012-13 budget includes funding for a 23% increase ($171,069) � No significant changes to other benefits Retiree Health Insurance � Employees hired on or after July 1, 2012 must have 20 years of continuous service to receive retiree health insurance overage � Survey of 22 other jurisdictions as of July 1, 2012 � 9 require continuous service � The break must be a year or less (1) � The last 10 years must be continuous (1) � 8 require total combined service � If the break in service is more than 3 years, the count starts over (1) � 3 require participation in a health savings account � 2 provide no retiree health insurance Employee Feedback � Prescriptions: � Brand names for certain acid reflux medications were not covered � Limited supplies for migraine and asthma medication � Members had to change prescriptions to get a lower co-pay � All generic prescriptions were not included in Tier I � Tier I co-pays increased from $0 to $8 � Services � Office visit co-pays did not include diagnostic tests � Preventive versus non-preventive services were unclear � Elimination of the obesity rider Employee Survey � 400 Employees responded � 73% POS plan participants � 96.6% of POS participants are very familiar or somewhat familiar � 23% HDP plan participants � 94.2% of HDP participants are very familiar or somewhat familiar � 76% participated in the health assessment � 95% would like to have $0 generic co-pays � 29% would like to reduce prescription costs � 22.8% would like plan improvements, if premiums remained the same or decreased � 34.3% would require employees to improve or maintain good health through smoking cessation and setting weight loss goals Next Steps th � September 19 : Discuss renewal recommendation with the ERC nd � October 2 : BOCC considers and approves the 2013 Employee Benefits Package th: � October 9 HR Staff begins education process for employees and retirees th nd � October 29 — November 2 : Open Enrollment, Mark III and HR Staff conduct numerous open enrollment meetings nd � November 2 : Open enrollment closes Commissioner Jacobs said that he asked for the detail of the survey because he knew that employees were very displeased with UHC as compared to Cigna. He wants to know if employees would be willing to have fewer benefits if you could switch to a provider they would rather have. He said that the survey should have had this question. In the follow-up, he thinks that this is a key indicator. Nicole Clark said that the survey is a starting point and she hopes to have focus groups. The details of the survey will be posted on the website. This is only a starting point for discussion. Commissioner Jacobs said that, having heard from employees, he would like them to know that they are not alone and that the County Commissioners responded in some way to direct staff to do this survey. Commissioner Foushee said that she has a concern about retiree health insurance. The Board changed the eligibility of employees but Board of County Commissioners retiree health insurance is not addressed. She thinks that if the County requires employees to have 20 years of continuous service, then the County Commissioners should also have something comparable (they are currently eligible now after eight years) to this for equity's sake. This will be brought back to the Board. Mark Browder then made his PowerPoint presentation. He made reference to slide 2 and said that the payout versus the premium pay was a loss of$2.7 million for the NCACC for insuring Orange County. After plan design changes were made, the plan has been running more smoothly than it did with the NCACC. It is running two points better than breaking even. Slide 5 has the 2013 renewal estimate. He looked at both fully insured and self-funded and self-funding does not make economic sense at this point. Slide 6 has the 2013 renewal from United Healthcare. There are now plan design changes. The net effect is a 7% increase in rates, which is competitive. Mark Browder made reference to the question of whether employees would be willing to pay more for richer benefits. He said that some employees would be willing to pay more. Slide 10 has the difference in Option 1 and 2, with the difference being the addition of the obesity surgery benefit. There is a substantial jump in cost to add that benefit. Renewal Observations: - The UHC Renewal is very competitive, based on the County's claims. -Looking to transition to another carrier will have a nominal financial impact. -Self-funding doesn't provide the County with any savings. -As noted, there are benefits additions that are being recommended. -Adding the obesity coverage would increase rates by nearly 4%, while only a few would utilize the benefit. Commissioner Jacobs asked if the County solicited bids and Mark Browder said no because this renewal was extremely competitive. He said that if they had stayed with Cigna, they would have seen the same prescription increases. He said that the County has not heard from employees who were positively impacted but only those that were negatively impacted. He said that going to Cigna would have caused a prescription tier interruption. If there is another move, there would be more disruption in the tiers for the employees. Commissioner Jacobs said that he read the employee feedback on page 4 of 14 of the survey and said that this is different than what Mark Browder is saying. He said that there is more involved than just cost. He would like to see if there are other alternatives in January. He said that it seems like service is an issue, regardless of tier disruption. He said that United Healthcare is notorious for bad service. He would like to have a plan to be broader in the examination. Commissioner Jacobs said that he attended a session at NACo about healthcare and it seems that Orange County is not aggressive enough in promoting wellness, which would drive down claims and costs. Commissioner Jacobs clarified that the renewal increase is less than budgeted. He asked if this could be applied to employee benefits. He would like to have this come back as an option. Mark Browder said that one of the ways to apply money is to have money available to fund wellness programs. Nicole Clark said that wellness is one of the areas they hope to use with the focus groups and get feedback from the employees. Commissioner Hemminger asked about the cost of a typical bariatric surgery and Mark Browder said that without complications it is $30,000+, but with complications, it can run up to $300,000. It is a serious surgery. Mark Browder said that healthcare reform does not give the flexibility as they have had before. He said that he needs a decision from the Board of County Commissioners no later than early October to keep the County compliant with the law. Nicole Clark said that one change is for the flexible spending accounts. The cap will be decreased from $5,000 to $2,500 next year. Dependent care is still $5,000. Commissioner Hemminger asked if the survey was given to retirees also. Nicole Clark said that the survey was for active employees only and there were no comments from retirees. There was feedback from retirees in the beginning with the new program last year. Commissioner Yuhasz asked if there was anything the County Commissioners could do to make sure the employees get better service from United Healthcare. Diane Shepherd said that the employees can let Human Resources know if there are problems with the UHC service. Nicole Clark said that staff will be meeting with the account managers on a regular basis with regard to service delivery. Commissioner Jacobs asked if UHC could communicate this directly to employees it would be better. He would like for UHC to be willing to come and do a Q&A with the employees. Commissioner Gordon asked what the retirees have said. Diane Shepherd said that she is in constant communication with the retirees and she also meets with them individually during open enrollments. There are periodic mailings to retirees. There is also a listserv for retirees. Commissioner Jacobs said that during budget time this is out of sequence for healthcare since it is on a calendar basis and not a fiscal year basis. He asked if there was any way to get a plan for a year and a half to make it better coordinated with the other financials of the County. Clarence Grier said that this has been discussed, but the timing has been the issue. Mark Browder said that there could be a short plan year from January 1 St— June 30tn and then the cycle would be started at that point. There cannot be an 18-month plan, but only a short cycle and then a new one starting July 1St Commissioner Hemminger said that she would like to consider allowing a gap in the continuous service for retiree health insurance for people that have to take an extended amount of time off. Some employees have come back and she would like to consider this. Nicole Clark said that she would look into this. The next step is to bring this back with recommendations at the October 2nd meeting. Commissioner Foushee said that she would like to have more discussion on eligibility of the Board of County Commissioners for retiree health insurance. Commissioner Jacobs asked to get draft minutes on this item as soon as possible so that staff can follow up on these issues before October 2na 3. Report on Paperless Aqendas Greg Wilder made reference to revisions to agendas after the agendas have gone out and said that staff has taken the position that when they publish the agenda, the agenda is put out to all County Commissioners and to the public. Any changes, whether there are additions or deletions or changes to materials, it is a decision for the Board to make at the meeting and therefore, it is not under staff's authority to change agenda materials. It is now up to the Board to change the agenda. This is why there will be no updates to the agenda on the website until after the meeting occurs. Commissioner Yuhasz said that sometimes it is only changing agenda materials, and if there are multiple revisions, it is difficult to manage, particularly when the documents are in pdf format. Todd Jones said that there may be an interim solution, but there are challenges. Staff can look into this if the Board desires. Commissioner Gordon suggested figuring out how not to add to an agenda, unless it is an emergency. Donna Baker said that sometimes there are revisions to abstracts that are already out there and sometimes the revisions are a result of questions from the County Commissioners. Commissioner Jacobs suggested that a modification could be "subject to Commissioner approval," and there could be a vote at the beginning of a meeting on whether or not to accept a modified agenda item. Todd Jones said that there are some aspects of this process that are way more efficient then the way things used to be done. Commissioner Gordon said that sometimes email exchanges also need to be included in the record. Commissioner Jacobs agreed and said that email transparency is something the County Commissioners have not discussed, but it should be discussed. A motion was made by Commissioner Foushee, seconded by Commissioner Jacobs to adjourn the meeting at 9:20 PM. VOTE: UNANIMOUS Bernadette Pelissier, Chair Donna S. Baker, CMC Clerk to the Board