The former director of the Mobile County Communications District has walked away from a family health insurance plan the agency’s board had approved specifically for him, ending an arrangement that cost taxpayers $960 a month and had drawn scrutiny from local officials.
George Williams, who led the county’s 911 dispatch agency until his retirement in April 2013, opted out of the coverage this month after comparing it against other options available to him, according to district officials. The move came during the same week that questions about the arrangement’s fairness and legality had drawn fresh attention to the board’s insurance policy.
The Mobile County Communications District’s board first authorized a group insurance plan for qualifying retirees in October 2012. At the time, Williams was the only retiree who met the plan’s criteria. The board narrowed the policy further in June, approving a motion that limited the coverage exclusively to him.
Under the arrangement, Williams received family health coverage without contributing anything toward the premium, while the district covered the full cost. That setup meant taxpayers were footing a $960 monthly bill for coverage benefiting a single former employee and his family.
District attorney Bill Wasden told board members during their Aug. 14 meeting that Williams had decided on his own to give up the coverage after weighing it against his other options.
“George Williams and I had a conference this week, and due to his comparisons of coverages, he decided to opt out of the district’s group insurance plan,” Wasden told the board. “At the end of the day, it was a decision that was made on a comparison of existing coverages and utility, or a lack thereof.”
Wasden said the district’s plan simply was not adding meaningful value on top of coverage Williams already had access to elsewhere. Like other Mobile County employees, Williams remained enrolled in the Local Government Health Insurance Plan, which pools premiums from public employees across several municipalities in the area. Wasden told the board that Williams had already completed the paperwork needed to be formally removed from the district’s separate plan.
The arrangement had prompted the board to seek a formal opinion from the Alabama Attorney General’s office on whether the insurance policy was appropriate, a review that remains unresolved. Wasden told board members the opinion is now awaiting final sign-off within the office’s executive department, with a response expected within days.
“It’s actually awaiting a final review in the executive department,” Wasden said of the pending opinion. “They expect to have that to us by Monday or Tuesday of next week.”
Williams and the district’s other retirees received better news elsewhere on the meeting’s agenda, as board members voted to opt the agency into a one-time bonus program for retired public employees approved by the Alabama Legislature earlier this year. The program, offered through the Retirement Systems of Alabama, allows any participating government body to provide eligible retirees a lump-sum payment of $300, or $2 for every month they were employed, whichever is greater. Beneficiaries of retirees who have died are also eligible for a $300 payment under the law.
District director Gary Tanner told board members the communications district has only four retirees on its rolls, and most will receive the base $300 payment. Williams, with his longer tenure, qualifies for $425. Tanner said the total cost to the district would be $1,562, a bill that is not due until 2015.
The Mobile County Commission is expected to take up the same bonus program at its Aug. 25 meeting. Commission President Connie Hudson confirmed the item is on the upcoming agenda and said she expects her fellow commissioners to support it.
“I personally support it,” Hudson said. “We haven’t communicated about it and I can’t speak for the other commissioners, but I would anticipate it would be a unanimous vote.”
A county public information officer said that if commissioners approve the measure, former Mobile County employees would receive the same one-time bonus already being extended to the communications district’s retirees. Several other local governmental bodies, including the Mobile Area Water and Sewer System and the City of Bayou La Batre, have already extended the same benefit to their own retirees.
Governments that intend to participate in the Retirement Systems of Alabama bonus program face an Aug. 31 deadline to formally affirm their participation.