As we are all aware, King County is running a general fund budget deficit of 68+ million dollars, and growing. To date, King County employees have successfully negotiated through their unions what is considered locally, and nationally an excellent and innovative health care package.
Now, we are gearing up to bargain the 2010–2012 benefit package. Your benefits are negotiated through a coalition of Unions called the Joint Labor Management Insurance Committee, (JLMIC). Your IFPTE Local 17 Union Representative, Whitney Hupf , serves on this committee. She receives guidance through a County-wide Local 17 health care committee and through direct feedback from members via tools like this.
Health care rates are rising at a rate of approximately 10 percent per year and the County is maintaining they can only afford a cost increase of 4 percent per year. Our goal as a union is to maintain the existing level of benefits, to expand coverage in some areas and to do this at a minimal cost to employees.
We are operating on the principal that shifting 100 percent of the cost burden to employees is not the solution to King County’s health care cost crisis, but that any solution must include the health care industry and King County. Your input on how to balance costs and benefits and other thoughts you have on this subject is important to the Local 17 Health Care Committee.
Below are a number of choices for ways in which benefits might be restructured in order to achieve future cost savings. The results of the survey will be compiled and given to Whitney and the Health Care Committee to help in participation on the JLMIC.
If you have already done the paper version of this survey, please do not complete again. Thank you.
