03/08/2004 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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-b 16 Jo3 -? .- . _ Qx.: Pr? c;.???C1du?=lia? c?r?? TO: All of Council and Mayor Rinker Qer,? u.?,d, V i?? e?,Q? ? FROM: Bill Buckholtz, Council President RE: Agent of Record / Healthcare 2004-2005 Note: This is meant to be an informational update regarding several facets of the consideration for selecting our Agent of Record and Healthcare Benefits package for the 2004-05 year. I feel it is extremely important to recap the views expressed by Council at the February 16t' meeting regazding Employee Healthcare, i.e. selecting an Agent of Record and shopping the best plan. I also fmd it necessary to brief everyone as to several things that transpired over the last couple of weeks. Regarding discussion at the last Regular Council meeting, the minutes reflect the following: Dr. Parker pointed out that the Task Force minutes did not appear to coincide with the employee "vote". That vote, by the way and as I explained to the employees face-to-face, was meant to be more of a poll, an opinion. I was more interested in the employees having the opporlunity to meet the candidates and express their opinions. Dr. Parker went on to point out Terd Kravec's qualifications above and beyond the other candidates particularly with regard to working with many other public entities. Mr. Marquardt agreed with Dr. Parker and also felt that things were being rushed, which I admit, at that point they were, at least in part, due to my concern with the April l" renewal da.te. Mr. Marquardt also emphasized the advantage of working with someone with a"broader scope of negotiation across communities," this is generally the direction that the Village has tieen taking on other things. Later in ? the week Mr. Mazquardt reminded me that achieving the proper outcome was to our best advantage. Mr. Saponaro was equally as impressed with W. Kravec and agreed with taking more time, getting more information to ultimately reach the best decision. Mrs. Cinco and Mrs. Mills, members of the Healthcare Task Force (Tom Marrie was out of town), explained the developments in which the employees were brought into the decision-making process. I attended one of those meetings but not the main one on Friday the 13t' of February. The concern that I shared along with Mrs. Mills and Mrs. Cinco was that we, as a Council, make the right decision without disenfrachising the employee. Would any employees get the false impression that some we asked for their opinion only to ignore it? On Wednesday moming (Feb. 18`h) I met with Joanne and Steve Pazker for an Information & Tecnology Boazd meeting. We spoke briefly on the healthcare issue both before and after the I.T. meeting, and I realized that in trying hard to create a wnified decision, we were headed in quite the opposite direction. I decided, at that moment, to go directly to each department and speak face-to-face with as many full- time Village employees as possible. I called off work and this turned out to be a long day but a win- win situation. I spoke to employees about Council's thoughts on selecting a new Insurance Agent. I also answered many questions and explained the history of switching from Lairy to 3im and now from Jim to ???. I made it clear that I was strictly working on an informational and goodwill level. I assured people that we as a Council valued their opinions buY that making a fiftal deeision carried a lot of ? responsibility and a lot more information than they had been given. I occurred to me that no one had really done due dilligence on QVichert so most people were just locked in their comfort zone voting