By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
Williston City Council members may have experienced a bit of sticker shock Tuesday when they were told the cost of the city’s health insurance was going up 12 percent.
The city’s insurer, Florida Municipal Insurance Trust, operated by the Florida League of Cities notified Williston recently that the rate hike was coming.
“We did get a little bit of an explanation. Everyone knows with COVID, rates were going to increase,” said Melisa Thompson, the city’s new human resources director. “I did try negotiating a little bit, so I’m waiting for an answer. I let them know normally anything over 7 percent is kind of excessive and is there anything we could do.”
Thompson said she is waiting for information on two health insurance plans with different rates from FMIT, but she said it’s probably too late in the year to ask for bids or quotes from other companies. She said rates are going to be high with health care insurance this year.
She said going out for bids or quotes at this point in the budget process would be difficult. The timeline would be tight. The new fiscal year starts Oct. 1.
“It is a substantial increase for the entire year,” said Council President Debra Jones. “Even if we put it out at the end of August it would be the end of September before we got it back.”
Thompson said she has tentatively scheduled employee open enrollment for Sept. 8 and 9.
“We’re probably over a barrel at this point. We probably need to do it (go out for bids) next time,” Jones said.
Thompson said she didn’t write a resolution for the council to review accepting the FMIT offer because she wasn’t certain whether the council would want to go out for bids. The council agreed by consensus to instruct Thompson to present a resolution at the next meeting accepting FMIT’s 12 percent offer.
Jones said getting a quote from FMIT midway through the budget process is nothing new. She said it usually happens that way. Insurance companies operate on their own cycle. She said there was no delay caused by a staff error.
She said the city’s financial analyst Stephen Bloom, who builds the city budget using staff and council input, anticipated a big increase in the cost of health insurance and added a 10 percent health insurance rate hike to the preliminary budget.
“Unfortunately, the bid came in above the 10 percent for our current company,” Jones said. “Every two or three years it’s good to put out for new bids and explore other options with other companies. It’s really too late at this point to put it out for bid. The decision to put out a Request for Proposals to multiple companies needs to be done 3-4 months in advance in order to negotiate a brand new contract. We do that every 3-4 years. Next year will be that year.”
Robinson Wants Interaction with Department Heads, Committee Chairs
Councilwoman Marguerite Robinson, who has been a member of the council for four or five years, questioned why department heads and the chairs of advisory boards no longer sit through council meetings to answer questions from the board.
“When I started, there was every committee chair here, every department head giving an update on whatever their meeting was about. They were here; if we had questions, they were here to answer them or just to be here,” she said. “Instead, we’re not getting that any longer and I would like to see that happen once again. We’re just not getting anything. If we do have questions we have to wait two weeks.”
Jones reminded Gorman that when she was planning director the Community Redevelopment Agency chair, the Planning and Zoning Chair, and the Board of Adjustment Chair attended council meetings. Planning and Zoning Chairman Albert Fuller attends all council meetings voluntarily.
Robinson wasn’t finished.
“I want updates on their meetings. We’d like them to be here if we have a question,” Robinson said. “Instead we hear complaints about some situations. They need to be here upfront to hear what’s going on rather than hearing it second hand. I want to see that happen. They agreed to be the chair heads, they agreed to be the department heads. They agreed to do that job. We are part of them, they are part of us.”
“I think it just got dropped when we changed people,” Jones said.
“It got dropped when all kinds of things happened,” Robinson responded.
“Do you get copies of the minutes in your box?” Gorman asked.
(inaudible reply from the council)
“You don’t get the minutes? That will change,” Gorman responded.
It wasn’t clear from Gorman’s response whether she intends to bring department heads and advisory board chairs to a council meeting every month.
July 3 to July 2
The Fourth of July is typically celebrated on July 3rd in Williston, but next year the 3rd of July falls on a Sunday.
Jones recommended switching the celebration to July 2 to move the celebration back to the traditional Saturday of the Fourth of July weekend.
The council agreed.
Parks & Utilities
Gorman said staff met with the city’s engineering consultant to kick off the development of a master utilities plan for water, sewer, and stormwater facilities.
“We’re putting priority on some of those East Williston projects, which I think is great. We’re identifying grants and some revenues,” Gorman said. “This is going to be an exciting year getting things done out there.”
Gorman was asked if she was looking at Cornelius Williams Park in terms of getting more lighting in the park. Cornelius Park has no security lighting nor does it have stadium lighting for its softball and baseball fields.
Gorman said the city has started a planning initiative to look at all the parks.
“For example, John Henry, when we got all the bases taken care of, it doesn’t flood anymore,” Gorman said. “We’re going to be working with our parks division and our planning department and we’re going to design a splash park – get grants for it. That’s going to be repurposed, John Henry. Epperson, we need to look at that. We’re working on partnerships.”
“Cornelius Williams – exciting time for it. We have a master plan the group’s been working on for all the things the group wants to see out there. We’re going to start looking at grants to make that happen. When we’re talking about a utility master plan, this is mainly for our water, sewer, and stormwater, so naturally, you don’t want to do a road project without knowing everything underground and that’s the whole purpose of this. You start splitting out priorities; when you look at every road, it’s going to tell you the condition of all the utilities; all those variances and it’s going to be splitting it out by the most need.”
Gorman said the city knows some parts of East Williston flood. She said the city is aware of that fact because it’s in the strategic plan. She said some priorities will have to be placed on it.
“When we’re talking about East Williston, we’re talking about getting utilities extended, getting septic to sewer and that’s huge,” she said.
Jones added that in the city’s budget hearings the council has talked about septic tanks in East Williston and extending natural gas to that community. In this council meeting, it talked about lighting.
Tapping into Federal Money
Gorman said the city is trying to tap into federal government money that’s being thrown out for infrastructure.
“The government is throwing money out there and we’re trying to capture that and take advantage of that,” Gorman said.
Jones added that people also “want broadband yesterday.”
Gorman was asked if the city has a master plan for its parks.
She responded that a group of volunteers associated with Cornelius Williams Park wants fencing, landscaping, and parking. Once that decision is made, she said bids can go out and the city can apply for grants.
“All of our parks are being looked at, all our infrastructure is being looked at. We have a grand initiative happening in our town right now,” she said.
Councilwoman Darfeness Hinds said she was glad Gorman mentioned fencing. She said fencing has been donated to Cornelius Williams Park. She asked if the fencing had been erected.
Gorman said Sparr Building donated the fencing.
“It’s the first I’ve heard of it,” Jones said.
Gorman said some projects are on hold.
“We’re not there yet. We just know bits and pieces that’s been happening with the Friends (of Cornelius Park) out there that’s been doing some work. Some of the projects have been on hold,” Gorman said.
Jones said she was aware that the top priority for the park was developing the master plan. She said that’s what’s needed.
“I didn’t know they had gone out and got fencing donated,” Jones added.
Gorman said Dennis Davis, who works as a consulting engineer for the city was instrumental in securing the fencing donation.
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City of Williston Regular Meeting August 17, 2021; Posted August 21, 2021
