County gets insurance relief

Last week, Jay County Commissioners heard insurance rates for county employees with Anthem were set to hold steady for next year.
However, Jennifer Heckman, a benefit specialist with Platinum Benefit Consulting Group, also said she’d sought relief on those rates.
Relief is what the county got. Commissioners received a revised renewal plan Monday, which includes a 5 percent decrease in premium costs for 2017. Commissioners on Monday approved keeping Anthem as its provider for next year.
Auditor Anna Culy said the amount the county contributes toward employee premiums will remain the same, meaning employees will see the totality of the decrease.
Commissioners also approved keeping its current providers for dental and vision coverage.
Rates for both are to remain at the same rates next year, Heckman told commissioners last week.
Meanwhile, acting as drainage board, commissioners held a hearing on a proposal to raise assessment rates for the Loblolly watershed, which is in both Jay County and Wells County. County surveyor Brad Daniels explained the county has jurisdiction over the watershed in Wells County.
The proposal calls for increasing rates from a $1.56 per acre to $2 per acre. Daniels said rates for the watershed were last increased in 1994.
A number of members of the public commented during Monday’s hearing, which lasted nearly an hour and at times strayed from its intended topic.
Robert Franks Jr., a candidate for commissioner in the upcoming election, and Randy Plummer objected the proposed increase.
Franks said debris needs to be cleaned out of county ditches and indicated he would like see a plan for such cleaning.
“If you want the money, clean the ditches, that’s what I’m saying,” said Franks.
In response to Franks comments, Parr explained that ditch work is often completed as the surveyor’s office is notified of issues.
“A lot of it is complaint driven. You go to (Daniels’) office, you let him know the situation that you need cleaned up and they try to schedule it with the guys,” Parr said. “They’re all over the county. You’re looking at over 34,000 acres just in that one Loblolly (watershed).”
Plummer, a Jay County and Wells County landowner, said he has “a fundamental disagreement” with the surveyor’s office’s definition of maintenance work.
“What I’ve seen as far as Jay County maintenance is you come along with the excavators and you do reconstructions, and move the bank, clean the bank and take off all the trees and then there’s nothing after that,” Plummer said. “And I don’t consider that to be maintenance.”
Meanwhile, Marie McKinley spoke in favor of the increase, saying that while she doesn’t necessarily like seeing taxes increased, this proposal is “not unreasonable.”
Commissioners did not take action Monday on the proposal, instead taking the public comments under advisement. Another hearing will be held on the proposal to allow Wells County residents to comment.
Daniels explained that Wells County property owners were not initially notified of the proposed increase. He said they will be notified and expects to hold a second hearing in approximately a month.
In other business, commissioners
•Met with Jeremy Gulley, president of Jay-Blackford Manufacturing Council and director of teacher effectiveness for Jay School Corporation, and Rusty Inman, executive director of John Jay Center for Learning, and briefly discussed the $924,500 grant Jay-Blackford Manufacturing Council was awarded last week from Indiana’s Department of Workforce Development Skill Up initiative to help develop a maintenance training program at John Jay. Inman said the grant, along with $2.3 million pledged from outside groups toward the program, is a “game changer” for the center.
•Approved amending an ordinance regarding county purchasing procedures. The passed ordinance amends that appointed purchasing agents have authority without further authorization from commissioners to purchase personal property at a value of no greater than $1,000. The limit was previously set at $2,000.
•OK’d highway superintendent Ken Wellman to be purchasing agent for a new truck for his department. The truck will cost $100,658 and be purchased from Stoops of Fort Wayne. Commissioners opened three bids for a new truck last week and took a week to let Wellman review them. Wellman said Monday that the truck from Stoops has the closest to what his department wants for the best price.
•As drainage board, approved lowering rates on the Collins watershed and combining it with the Salamonie watershed as well as a set of drainage plans for American Electric Power Indiana Transmission Company’s Bluff Point Station.