Commissioners discuss health insurance costs, paid vacation time for county employees
Ozark County employees will not have to pay more this year for their health insurance, although the cost of the benefit will increase $68 per person per month for the coming year. County commissioners agreed to cover the increase in the monthly premiums for county employees.
Employees now pay $148 per month for basic health insurance, and the county will now pay $598, or about 80 percent of the monthly premium. The county had been paying $530 per person per month last year.
“We have less [people] employed this year, but we’ll be paying more,” Presiding Commissioner John Turner said at Monday morning’s weekly meeting of the county commission. “So it won’t be a great increase overall.”
Employees are also given the option to “buy up” to a better plan, with the employee covering the difference.
Paid vacation
At the meeting, Ozark County Clerk Brian Wise brought up another point about the county’s benefit package.
“We need to really start looking at vacation time for people who’ve been here longer than three years, because the issue right now is that if you’ve been here for three years and a month, or 30 years and a month, you have the same amount of vacation time,” Wise said.
Wise said that county employees begin earning four hours per month of paid vacation time when they’re hired, equaling six paid workdays off per year.
That amount increases to eight hours per month, equaling 12 paid workdays per year, when employees are fully vested after three years. Currently, employees top out at that amount and are not able to earn any additional paid vacation, no matter how long they’re employed with the county.
“I throw it on the table every year, but we seriously need to look at it this year. Especially with minimum wage going up, and [the county] barely being able to keep up with minimum wage,” Wise said. “[Currently,] they get a quarter extra [per hour] every five years. So the incentive to stay [employed with the county] is a quarter. But if we give more vacation days, it may help.”
Turner seemed in favor of considering an increase.
“I think we need to incentivize people to stay. You get someone up and get them trained, and they know what they’re doing and then they leave,” he said. “We need a reason for them to stay.”
The commissioners agreed to discuss the matter in the coming months and consider possibly increasing the amount of paid vacation time long-term employees are able to accrue.
Wise told the Times that Ozark County currently has 31 employees who are receiving benefits. “The number fluctuates throughout the year, but last year the county averaged about 35 employees who were receiving benefits,” he said.
Minimum wage in Missouri was raised to $10.30 per hour on Jan. 1, an increase of $2.45 per hour over the last three years, according to the Missouri Department of Labor. Minimum wage was $9.45 in 2020, $8.60 in 2019 and $7.85 in 2018.