Health-care premiums to jump almost a million Township employees still pay nothing toward premium BY PATRICIA A. MILLER Staff Writer Brick Township officials trumpeted the news last year that there would no increase in health-care premiums for 510 employees. Things will be different in 2008. Brick is facing a 13 percent increase, or roughly $818,100 in premium costs with Horizon Blue Cross, Blue Shield of New Jersey, the township's health insurance carrier. The township paid $6,060,00 last year, Township Administrator Scott M. Pezarras said. "And this only covers medical," he said. "We haven't gotten our quotes for dental and prescriptions." Mayor Stephen C. Acropolis made the announcement at the Dec. 18 Township Council meeting. Acropolis, who was a councilman until he was elected mayor in November, took the lead last year and told the township's healthcare insurance broker he wanted a "zero" increase in 2007. He got it. Councilwoman Kathy Russell, the lone Democrat on the council, questioned why the township this year waited until "the eleventh hour" to negotiate the cost of health care premiums. "It's a big number, it's a big piece of the budget," Russell said at the Dec. 18 meeting. "What time did we start talking with the carrier?" Acropolis said dealing with health care costs for 2008 was the responsibility of the administration, including former Mayor Daniel J. Kelly. "How many times did the former mayor meet with the broker of record?" Acropolis asked Pezarras. "None," Pezarras said. Russell then asked why the council's business and finance committee had been involved in the process in 2006. "In 2006, we had no mayor," Acropolis said. "The mayor who was here (former Mayor Joseph C. Scarpelli) wasn't here at all. We can go back and look at the attendance records.We had to get involved by necessity. We had no mayor." The business and finance committee has worked "very diligently," Council President Michael Thulen said. "Nowwe have a brand newmayor that's basically hit the ground running," he said. "That was not done by the last administration. I think you are going to see somemajor differences with the new mayor." Employees contribute nothing for health insurance premiums, but pay co-pays for doctor visits and co-pays for prescriptions, Pezarras said. "I have yet to be able to negotiate that [paying for premiums] into the contract," he said. "I've been trying." One employee had $900,000 in claims in 2007, which "didn't help," Pezarras said after the meeting. There are roughly 2,300 employees between the township and the Board of Education, Acropolis said. He proposed setting up several clinics around town that employees of both entities could use for minor illnesses. The clinics would be primarily staffed by physician assistants, not doctors, to cut down on costs, Acropolis said. "I hope we have better news for you next year," he said. The township opted out of the state health insurance plan back in 2001. Union contracts mandate that employees receive "equal or better" coverage if a town decides to leave the state health plan, Pezarras has said. "It's a contractual thing,"Acropolis said. "That subject has been broached. The state has gotten their employees to contribute towards the premiums. People have to understand what you can and can't do through contract negotiations."