SC WORKERS WOULD GAIN INSURANCE, LOSE DAYS

SCOTT CITY -- If the City Council approves a new insurance package at its meeting tonight, it will ask city employees to look to the future even if it means some sacrifices now.

If approved, the city would pay 50 percent of city employees' insurance for family members. But the proposal would come at a price. All city workers, even those who do not benefit from the insurance payments, would lose half their sick days each year.

The city already pays 100 percent of its employees' insurance coverage, at a cost of $149.39 a month per employee. City workers have the option of paying another $149.39 a month to insure spouses. Finance Committee Chairman Gary Miller said another package provides insurance just for children but he was not sure of the cost.

To insure both spouses and children, employees pay about $230 a month. That amount covers all children to age 18, regardless of how many there are.

Originally, Miller had proposed the city pay 75 percent of spouses' insurance, but at a Finance Committee meeting last week the committee decided to rework that to 50 percent.

Council member Cindy Uhrhan, who is also on the finance committee, said city employees currently accumulate one sick day per month of employment. She said the proposal would cut that to a half-day for employees with little tenure.

The longer the employees stay with the city the more sick time they accumulate per month. She said workers who stay a certain number of years -- she wasn't sure how many -- would get back to one sick day per month.

Uhrhan said the proposal would call for sacrifices from the unmarried city workers. But, she added, those workers might start a family one day and then the benefit would apply to them.

"We've got to start somewhere," Uhrhan said. "They've got to look to the future too."

Parks Director Phyllis Spinks said she has one employee who would benefit from the insurance payment and said he is in favor of the proposal. Spinks said she wasn't excited about losing her sick days but said she would go without if it would help the city keep employees.

"I just wish there was some way we could have an option," she said.

The finance committee was to have cost projections compiled for the council by tonight as it looked to make a decision. Uhrhan said the committee was unable to gather a complete cost estimate.

"We don't know how many employees would be taking advantage of this benefit," she said. "We're just going to present it to the council and go from there."