Three-quarters of a million dollars is quite a health insurance hike.
Yet the City of Kinston is staring down the barrel of exactly that unless city officials can find a better choice.
“I told the (City) Council (Monday) night I’m trying to finish balancing the electric fund, and I’m waiting on another health care provider to give the city another health care quote,” Kinston City Manager Tony Sears said. “Those are the two things that are holding me up right now.
“I think I told the council I hope to get them the budget by Wednesday of next week.”
The city’s insurance is with Blue Cross Blue Shield and comes up for renewal at the beginning of the next fiscal year.
“From fiscal year ‘13 to fiscal year ‘14, the City of Kinston’s insurance is going to go up,” Sears said before acknowledging that’s not a certainty. “It’s not going up, it was quoted. I’m still looking at it. It was quoted as 32 percent higher, over $748,000.”
Sears is waiting on quotes from MedCost and Aetna before putting solid numbers into the budget and presenting it to the City Council. With the exception of balancing the electric fund, all other aspects of the budget are done and ready to go.
“The elected body is well-aware that we should expect health insurance to increase this year, because of the anomaly that we had zero percent change last year,” Kinston Mayor B.J. Murphy said. “Through the advice and counsel of our city manager, I suspect we’ll figure out how to make it work.”
Wes Wolfe can be reached at 252-559-1075 or wes.wolfe@kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter @WolfeReports.
City of Kinston health insurance
- Current provider: Blue Cross Blue Shield
- Change: Premiums may be raised 32 percent, more than $748,000
- Quotes requested: Aetna, MedCost