Once the Daviess County Sheriff’s Office is under the statewide Kentucky Employees’ Health Plan (KEHP), a change announced by Fiscal Court this week, those in county law enforcement will begin paying into their insurance starting Jan. 1. In contrast to the majority of employees associated with Fiscal Court, DCSO pays for its employees’ insurance in full.
Deputies and their families were invited to meet Friday to discuss the upcoming switch to KEHP and what it would mean for each person. As stated by Chief Deputy Major Barry Smith, each employee will be affected differently as insurance premiums will vary in price.
“We’re going with a state plan, and we’re on a state payroll as well [because we serve a county population over 70,000],” Smith said.
Smith said KEHP requires employees to pay premiums out of pocket each month. Based on the package chosen by an individual or family, premiums will vary, with some costing up to $600 a month.
Part of DCSO’s incentive in recruiting and retaining employees has been its no-cost insurance package, which Smith said made up for lower salaries earned by DCSO employees in comparison to other law enforcement agencies across the state.
“We offered no-cost insurance to employees because we tried to overcome deficiencies in salaries,” he said. “It made us more equal to other agencies, as far as competitive benefits.”
Without that no-cost insurance option for employees, Smith said DCSO plans to take an approach similar to other agencies who pay higher salaries.
“We had to start looking at how to offset that,” he said. “We’re saving some money because we’re passing some [insurance costs] to our employees, so we’re trying to put that money back into salaries.”
Smith said DCSO will offset the costs of insurance with better pay evenly across the board.
As for the new plan and the changes that accompany it, Smith said employees took the news well during a Friday morning meeting.
“There’s some advantages with the state insurance plan,” Smith said, such as a health savings account deputies could utilize, and a life insurance option made available to them for the first time, at an additional cost.
Smith said he believes his employees felt better after getting more information during the two-hour meetings that took place.
