SCOTT CITY TO INSURE WORKERS' FAMILIES

SCOTT CITY -- The Scott City Council is moving ahead on its plans to pay 50 percent of an employee's spouse and family insurance.

Council member Cindy Uhrhan told the council Monday night the plan may cost the city about $1,000 a month. To compensate, employee sick days would be cut from 12 to six a year.

The plan and it will be voted on at the council's next meeting. City department heads were told to distribute medical history reports to employees taking advantage of the benefit.

The reports need to be completed and returned because of a 30-day waiting period after the paperwork is turned in to the insurance company and before the program begins.

Uhrhan said the payment would go directly to Alliance Blue Cross Blue Shield, the city's health insurance company. It would not be in the form of a pay raise. The plan would be added to the city's budget each year and would be financed, "even if we have to cut some frills to get through," she said.

The program would go into effect June 1.

In other city business:

-- Mayor Jerry Cummins and council member J.T. Gulley asked Police Chief Danny Clubb to instruct his officers to begin ticketing people parking across the lines in the city's parking lot on Main Street.

Last month a group of volunteers painted parking lines on the lot. Clubb had said it was difficult to enforce a city ordinance regarding parking within the lines when it was hard to see the lines. Gulley said that now that the lines have been painted it's time to enforce the ordinance.

Cummins said officers can write warnings at first to let people know the police department was cracking down.

-- City Clerk Nona Walls said the city has 500 dog tags for Scott City residents to buy. Dogs need to be registered each year with the city to abide by city code. That came as a surprise to at least two council members who said they were going to have to register their pets immediately.

Walls said residents can buy the tags and get their pets rabies vaccines Saturday at a rabies clinic from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Scott City Animal Clinic on Main Street.

-- Canel Wood Inc., a new business at the SEMO Port Authority, has requested to be hooked on to the city's water system. Canel will be charged the outside user's rate of 1.75 percent of the city rate. That company is expected to use 70,000 gallons of water a day.