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Insurance savings add to 'healthy' Medford budget By MELISSA MARTIN There's a surprise in the city of Medford's $88.5 million proposed budget for 2002-03 - a savings in the cost for employee health benefits. While most school districts and government agencies expect higher insurance premiums in the coming year, Medford will pay less. "We were lucky," said Doug Detling, human resources director. "How long we will be able to stave off insurance premiums that other folks are facing is a wait-and-see game." The city will save $700,000 over two years because parks employees, mechanics and wastewater treatment plant operators switched from Oregon Dental Service, which offered monthly premiums of about $785 per person, to Teamsters Health Insurance, with $600 monthly premiums. The city spends $245,410 a month for employee health insurance. Wages and benefits for the city's 419 full-time and part-time employees make up more than a third of the city's budget. Medford will spend $32.8 million on wages and benefits this coming year, compared to $31.3 million last year, partly due to salary increases ranging from 1.6 percent to 3.5 percent. There's one new position in the proposed budget, a grant specialist. City Manager Michael Dyal cited other reasons for lower health costs: the city's new wellness program that encourages exercise and healthier diets; and the city manager's discussions with employees about how to control medical expenses. "We talked about if we didn't get a handle on our health care costs we would be in trouble," Dyal said during the budget committee's first meeting. The 18 members of the city budget committee will meet at 7 p.m. Monday in the council chambers at Medford City Hall. The committee's job is to send a recommended budget forward to the City Council for adoption in June. While the proposed 2002-03 budget appears to be lower than last year's $89.3 million budget, it actually is $1.7 million more, Dyal said. That's partly due to the budget changing several times this past year, including the city's selling of $5 million in bonds for street projects. City managers asked all departments to freeze costs in materials and services to help curb the budget's growth, said Jef Faw, deputy city manager. "The city of Medford is financially healthy and sound," Mayor Lindsay Berryman told the budget committee, which includes the mayor and the eight City Council members. When it comes to borrowing, the city has $204 in debt per resident, lower than the statewide average of $430 per person, she said. The city has $19.4 million in total bonded debt, $4.9 million of it in obligation bonds, or voter-approved debt. That's well below the city's legal limit of $131.4 million for obligation bonds, Berryman said. The city also has more money in reserve funds than most Oregon cities. With a total of $12 million in contingency, city departments could survive three months without an income if necessary. Medford's reserve funds are even higher than the 15 percent recommended by the Government Finance Officers Association, said finance director Larry Bryant. "Our ending fund balance is 29.9 percent of total revenues," Berryman said. "By comparison, the city of Eugene's ending fund balance is 21.7 percent of total revenues." About one-fourth of the city's proposed budget, $23.9 million, is for public works. The budget includes rebuilding the intersection at Crater Lake Avenue and McAndrews Road and adding new street lights at Crater Lake Avenue and West Roberts, Barnett Road and Golf View and Keene Way and McAndrews Road. There is also money in the public works budget to build a mechanic bay for dump trucks at the Service Center on Columbus Avenue and money to rebuild the cogeneration engine at the wastewater treatment plant. Another capital project in the 2002-03 proposed budget is reinforcing City Hall to make it safer during an earthquake. The cost is about $650,000. On the revenue side, the city expects to get $1.29 million this year from parking and traffic tickets, court fines and tickets generated from the new red light camera program. The city anticipates $4.6 million in revenue from system development charges, or fees added to the cost of new homes and businesses, down from the current year's $5 million. The decrease is due to a slow-down in building activity, Bryant said. The city has collected $681,101 to date through the new system development charge earmarked for the South Medford freeway interchange project. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.