A standing-room-only crowd packed Government Plaza for a public hearing on Mobile’s proposed fiscal year 2015 budget, as retired city employees, former police chiefs and union representatives pushed back hard against a plan that would scale back the city’s contribution toward retiree and employee health coverage.
Retired firefighter Billy Gilchrist recalled a verbal promise made to him decades ago when he was first hired, an assurance he said was echoed for former revenue director Linwood Morrison, former Police Chief Phillip Garrett and Wesley Young, president of the Mobile Public Service Workers. Young told the council that longtime employees stayed with the city for the benefits, not the paycheck, and warned that changing those benefits now would break faith with a generation of retirees.
The proposal, put forward by Mayor Sandy Stimpson’s administration, targets what officials describe as the city’s single largest cost center: health coverage, which reached 26.7 million dollars last year, its most expensive year on record. Under the plan, new hires would start on a 60/40 cost-sharing structure for health coverage, while current active employees would see monthly premiums rise from 54 dollars to 69 dollars for single coverage and from 140 dollars to 178 dollars for family coverage, part of a broader shift toward an 80/20 cost-sharing split that city policy has called for since at least 2004 but has never fully implemented.
For retirees, the changes are steeper. About 775 Medicare-eligible retirees would receive a 175 dollar monthly subsidy to purchase supplemental coverage, with that subsidy phasing out after four years and a full shift to Medicare-based coverage set for April 2015. For the roughly 381 retirees not yet eligible for Medicare, monthly premiums would climb from 54 dollars to 103 dollars for single coverage and from 140 dollars to 210 dollars for family coverage.
DeWayne Patrick, president of the local firefighters union representing more than 200 retirees and 300 active members, warned that the changes could make it harder to recruit and retain public safety workers at a time when the police and fire departments already face staffing shortages. He raised concerns that firefighters could be forced to keep working into their sixties simply to hold onto affordable insurance once they turn 55.
Even the administration’s proposed 5 percent employee raise, split between a cost-of-living increase and a later adjustment, did little to soften the objections. One longtime city employee, Julia Dickson, told officials during the hearing that she would rather forgo the raise altogether than accept the tradeoff on health benefits.
Mayor Stimpson defended the proposal, saying no plan exists to remove spouses from coverage and noting that retirees on family plans would receive 315 dollars toward supplemental insurance. He emphasized that the health plan changes are not directly tied to the budget vote itself, with most changes not taking effect until January 2015 for active employees and April 2015 for retirees, leaving what he called room for continued discussion before implementation.
Former Police Chief Phillip Garrett compared the situation to national concerns about delayed care for military veterans, arguing that longtime city employees carry the physical and emotional toll of their careers and deserve to be treated accordingly as the council weighs the final shape of next year’s budget.