2023-08-04 Salary Commission Minutes

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Salary Commission August 4, 2023 For the EUTF book, they have the 75/25 plan, the 80/20 plan, the 90/10 plan, and the HMO. The single employee, their burden is 40 percent. Even as an employee, whereas in the private sector the law is written that the employer bears 98.5 percent of the cost for the employees premium. The dependent portion can be passed all the way on to the employee, so they'll see it in their wages. But for the EUTF employee, that doesn't matter if it's County or State, they will see 40 percent—whether they are a single employee or if they carry dependents on the book. And I think it's important to include into the factors that we use to weigh in when we look at the enormity of the information, when we're seeing wagesI'm suggesting in front of this Board, that compensation—overall compensation includes that point from gross to net wages, and the employees are going to start to face their increases, effective July 2024. Thank you. MS. GREENBAUM: This is Commissioner Judy Greenbaum. Commissioner Namahoe, are you indicating that the employee would be responsible for a portion of the premium—is that what I'm understanding and/or are you indicating that part of our consideration in the salary increase—factor in this benefit? MS. NAMAHOE: I think that it's important for us to consider when we start to discuss what increases—how we quantify the need for increases. I noticed this in our first meeting last month—and I want to put this additional piece in everyone's brain because the employer—and when I say "employer" in the County level the County of Hawaii is considered one employer, County of Maui's considered another employer, State's considered its own employer. But they, together, co -mingle their duties with their staff under the EUTF Employer Union Trust Fund. So, when—what we see right now is that the employees of all of these employers—so all of the county employees, for this discussion, will have to make their choices when it comes to their healthcare premiums. What I'm saying is that even if we for example, tabled no raises, just status quo this coming year they're still going to see less coming out of their net paycheck because all employees must bear 40 percent of the premiums the total premium cost. That's the way EUTF has negotiated their package their benefit package. And the reason why the County and the State could do that, whereas in the private sector they cannot do that—is because two things. One, the government doesn't have to follow their own rules. But two, because when you meet full retirement status from EUTF, you have available to you, a retirement package all the way up to 90/10 premiuma 90/10 plan with no monthly premiums. So, if we've never worked for government before or have a government employee in our household, we're not aware of that. And I think it's important for us to consider that because even if we say "no raises"—it's still going to be harder on the paychecks, effective July 2024. And we're not deciding, perhaps, 2023 but we are deciding 2024. So, from the healthcare side, that's how we frame our calendars. I am suggesting this so that we could, perhaps, get on a similar page. And I'm not inferring anything beyond that. Page 5