City Pay Increases for Insurance

Employees in Columbus City may start to receive some serious pay increases to help them afford the cost of health insurance. Health insurance costs continue to increase and it has become harder for city employees to afford the rising cost of such care which is why it would be ideal to increase the pay and enable these employees to receive bigger paychecks to cover such costs. This is a proposal that has been brought up to the Columbus City Council. The director of Human Resources, Mike Oglevie, did an outline of a few changes that would need to be made earlier on in the week when the Committee of the Whole meeting was held. The purpose of the meeting was to help the city set up a budget for the 2012-2013 year, as this will start on October, the first of the month.

Oglevie made a recommendation for the enabling pay increases based on performance of the city employees. City employees would be able to receive an increase in their paychecks of around 2.7 percent, as these raises were approved the past two years, back in 2010 and in 2011. Oglevie says that there are currently 155 employees who are working for the city full-time. He pointed out that the pay increase plan would not be put in place for those who are working as firefighters or police officers since their unions will be working out salaries for them in a few months from now. As of right now, there was no estimate on how much these pay increases for employees would cost the city. All that was said, however, was that pay raises would take place based on merit and that not every employee would automatically receive a raise right away.

In the meantime, the employees who actually do receive the raise are going to need it, especially since the health insurance premiums are going to cost more, at a total of about 15 percent for the city’s employees. The 15 percent premium increase is taking place after several other increases have taken place over the years. Oglevie thinks that the primary reason pay increases need to be made to employees is to help keep health insurance more affordable. He pointed out that no one really wants to deal with an increase in the amount they have to be but it is also important the employees take proper care of themselves and that they can only do so if they have health insurance, which is something they can only afford if they have the money to do so. No action has been taken just yet but the pay increase idea will be part of the budget plan for the 2012-2013 year.