Village Avoids Costly Injunction with State Insurance Plan

Mount Pleasant has avoided a costly court battle with the South Shore fire union by staying with the state health insurance plan for another year, but it gave up big cost savings in the process.

The fire union told Patch it was considering a lawsuit to block the village from switching health insurance providers. The village could have saved $646,000 by switching all employees from the state insurance plan to a cheaper one with a significantly higher deductible, but South Shore firefighters balked at that option.

The two-year firefighter contract—including the state insurance plan—was ratified in 2011, and the union says changing the insurance plan now would violate the terms of the contract.

After meeting briefly Oct. 15 and again for more than four hours Friday, trustees voted unanimously to stick with the Wisconsin state insurance for municipal employees, but utilize a different plan level.

"They went with a lesser plan, which is another concession from fire fighters, but we know we have to have savings and this is the right thing to do," said William Miller, union president.

In a nutshell, village employees had a health plan that paid nearly everything at 100 percent. Now, workers - including police officers and fire fighters - will have deductibles for individuals and families that are $500 and $1,000, respectively. Out-of-pocket expenses top out at $1,000 for individuals and $2,000 for families.

The HRA plan the village decided not to go with included deductibles of $2,000 and $4,000 and maximum out-of-pocket expenses of $4,000 and $8,000.