County eyes change to get more services for same price from consultant

Taylor County is hoping a change in consultants could bring more bang for taxpayer dollars when it comes to health insurance and benefits discussions.

Members of the county’s finance and personnel committee on Tuesday heard from Eric Twerberg and Rae Anne Beaudry of USI Insurance Services about additional benefits USI can offer the county for the same price the county is paying the Horton Group for health care consulting.

The county currently pays $36,000 a year to the Horton Group to serve as advisors for health insurance and to be the intermediary between the insurance providers and the county.

According to Beaudry, who used to work for the Horton Group, USI has more resources as part of a national company as well as having a strong local presence with an office in Wausau.

“We out localize the locals and out nationalize the nationals,” Beaudry said. Beaudry explained that the county has not seen her recently because of a noncompete clause. Previously she was the consultant who worked with Taylor County.

Beaudry said that in addition to working with the county on health care, they provide human resources support and can assist with real-time modeling to see if there is a benefit to the county toward switching away from vacation and sick leave to a paid time off (PTO) model. She noted USI has 8,000 employees in 220 offices throughout the country including people with actuarial, legal, and pharmacy skills.

She said the goal would be to avoid having the county need to make plan changes every year and instead look to creatively maximize what can be done to benefit the county and the employees with the money that is available.

“At USI we believe data drives decisions,” she said, noting that because they would be collecting the data as it generated they would know sometimes before the insurance providers themselves about claims trends.

“We would have direct access to your data and are not waiting for them to get it to us,” she said. “We may have it before they have it.”

The major selling point for switching was in offering additional services to the county and looking at different models of delivering benefits to employees and their families.

Committee chairman Chuck Zenner questioned Beaudry on her saying the price would be unchanged. He was cautious about the county agreeing to switch and then having the price jump up after the first year.

Beaudry said they would keep the county’s fee at $36,000 for the first three years of their contract and that their annual rate increase after that would be 3%.

Finance director Larry Brandl suggested that to be fair the county should allow Horton Group an opportunity to make a counter offer. The county has a year-toyear contract with Horton Group which renews automatically on August 1. The contract includes a clause which allows them to cancel it with 60 days notice.

Committee member Lester Lewis commented on Brandl’s suggestion to be fair to the current company, to offer a comparison. “They have that opportunity every year and they haven’t offered anything for several years,” he said. “It should have been up to them to bring forward more services.”

Committee member Ray Soper agreed, criticizing the presentation by the Horton Group last year describing it as one of the worst he has ever seen. “I don’t have any great love for our consultant,” he said.

Committee member Rolly Thums agreed noting if the company was doing the job they should have already brought what they can do to the county.

Committee member Scott Mildbrand opposed making a decision at the meeting, noting that hearing about it and being asked to make a decision 15 minutes later did not give enough time to fully consider it. Lewis noted that with the 60 day notice they would want to move sooner rather than later.

In the end, the committee decided to hold a special meeting prior to the start of the April 18 county board session to make a final decision on the consultant. The action does not need to go to the full county board for approval.

Vehicle purchases

“I think we replace vehicles too soon,” Mildbrand said, questioning why the finance and personnel committee was being asked to approve the purchase of two vehicles for the maintenance department.

The vehicles in question replace two older county vehicles that had been parked as being unsafe to continue to use. In October 2021, the county approved replacing a forestry department pick up truck, at the request of the maintenance department, so that the maintenance department could use the existing forestry truck. The truck was ordered but was not delivered until earlier this month due to manufacturer delays.

In the meantime, another county vehicle used by the maintenance department needed to be taken out of service and the maintenance committee approved having the maintenance director work with local dealers to find an acceptable vehicle to use.

Brandl noted that it was coincidence that they arrived at nearly the same time, noting the other should have been here more than a year ago. He also noted that the sheriff’s department received three new squad cars which had been on order.

“In these vouchers the county spent $280,000 on new vehicles,” Mildbrand said.

He said he felt that replacing the vehicles on too soon of a basis was archaic.

Zenner disagreed noting that the maintenance department runs their trucks probably longer than they should be run. The two trucks being replaced are 2008 and 2009 model years. “They got their mileage out of them,” Brandl said.

Committee member Jim Gebauer said that when it comes to vehicles there is a certain amount of “pay me now or pay me later.”

In other business, committee members:

  Reviewed a potential job description for a proposed network coordinator position to serve as the county’s point person in working with the vendors for the county’s broadband network. Broadband committee chairman Mike Bub said their goal in bringing it to the committee now was to keep them in the loop with information about the position, which he said is needed to watch over the $23 million in public and private investment that has been made to get a network built. “I don’t think it should be a foregone conclusion that we are going hire this guy,” Mildbrand said, saying that if there is a problem with the county not trusting the company hired to run the system, they should hire a different company. Bub compared it to hiring an engineer to oversee a dam project to make sure things are done correctly and look out for the best interest of the county.

  Discussed a potential change to the employee handbook to go to a PTO model from the existing accrued vacation and sick leave model as part of a larger discussion on potential handbook changes. Human resources director Nicole Hager gave each of the committee members a copy of the handbook and some proposed areas for policy changes. She said she wanted to give them an opportunity to look and see if there were other changes they felt should be looked at before moving forward with working on the changes proposed.

  Approved seeking to increase the county’s combined credit card limit to $25,000. Currently, the county is at a $10,000 limit combined over four credit cards. The cards are used to make hotel and travel reservation, conference registrations and other purchases. Purchases on the cards are reviewed by the finance department with charges paid after being reviewed by the department oversight committees. The request to increase the debt limit amount was because in recent months the county has reached their limit which prevents other departments from using them.

  Approved paying for a Sam’s Club membership at $110 per year and credit card to cover purchases made through the store. The health department gets supplies through the store and the courthouse employee fund group purchases items for sale in the break room through the retailer. The credit card will be kept by the health department with other departments who wish to make purchases with it to contact the health department and have it billed back to them. Lewis voted against getting the membership and credit card.

  Approved the formal carryover for the information technology department. The carryover of the non lapsing funds was approved during the budget process last fall and Tuesday’s action was a formality. However Mildbrand wanted assurance this would not interfere with suggestions regarding non lapsing funds that was brought to the budget review committee. Zenner noted that any proposals would be for the 2024 budget and not this year.