Given the increasing complexity of issues surrounding healthcare and pension benefits, West Windsor Township hopes to hire a part-time healthcare consultant. Business Administrator Robert Hary will present a resolution to hire a consultant — at a cost of $50,000 a year — at the Council meeting on October 24.
The services Hary expects a healthcare consultant to provide include work on the town’s Medicare part D application; Early Retiree Reinsurance Program (ERRP) for the federal government; assisting the township and staff in understanding employee benefits; reviewing employee contracts; and reviewing claims history and providing actuary services.
“Every three years you have to do an actuary estimate of what your healthcare costs and liabilities are from that point forward,” Hary explained at the October 11 meeting.
Hary said one more big need the consultant will fill is assisting the township in negotiating various insurances available in the open market, as the township must shop around and provide services as a union contractor.
In addition the consultant will promote healthy living and weight loss consultations and lectures within the municipality as well to encourage employees to be healthier and, in theory, fall ill less often.
At the October 11 meeting Councilmembers Linda Geevers and Diane Ciccone touched on budget savings for 2012, but when it came to the healthcare consultant strategy and cost evaluation Geevers made it clear that Councilman Charles Morgan should help assess the idea.
Morgan has been away since the council voted on the InterCap settlement on September 19, but he is set to return to council on October 24.
The proposed consultant is a manager from Frankel & Company in Jersey City and would cost $50,000 for one year, and his proposed costs would be lessened by $2,500 per year if a longer term as adopted. The administration sent out 12 requests for quotations but only two responders came through.
“We want to hire a consultant, not a broker, someone who is working for us solely and we can evaluate them based on what they do for us and there’s no middleman. If you have a broker the town does not pay them directly because they collect their percentage from the insurance company. That scares us,” Hary said.
