City employees enjoy rare perk of 100% paid benefits

During the collapse of the economy, cities have been forced to take drastic measures such as cutting employees’ salaries, reducing the number of days in a workweek and laying people off.

While Maricopa hasn’t resorted to these actions, if the downturn and falling revenues continue, the city might have to look at adjusting one of its biggest perks for employees.

Maricopa is the only city in Arizona with a population greater than 5,000 that pays 100 percent of both employees’ and their dependents’ benefits package. The other cities in that category pay out an average of 64.25 percent of benefits packages.

Maricopa’s benefits package includes dental, medical, vision, life insurance, short-term disability and a retirement fund.

The medical, dental and vision benefits for city employees are divided into four categories. The individual plan costs the city $386 each month, employee and spouse is $804, employee and dependant $762 and employee and family $1,183.

“When we first started operating as a city, we used the benefits package as a means of attracting highly qualified candidates,” said City Manager Kevin Evans.

However, Evans added that it now might be time to look at the policy and make some adjustments.

“As far as the budget goes, everything is on the table and in the next four weeks we will be going line by line through every item,” he said.

One of the reasons for a possible change is the rapid increase the city has witnessed in its per-employee benefit payout. In 2004 when Maricopa first incorporated, the average overall benefits payout per employee was $2,511 per year, but since then that average has increased to $16,452, in part to rising premiums and an increase in the number of employees signing up for the family medical and dental package.

Assistant city manager Roger Kolman said with Maricopa creating a police department and fire department in the past couple of years, more employees in those areas are typically young men with families.

In order in cut expenses during the recession, the City Council has already approved to cut consultants’ pay, push back capital improvement projects and cancel several training sessions.

“We are being very progressive in trying to stay on top of the budget,” said city budget manager Corrine Wilcox-Cornn.

Maricopa’s rapid growth during the housing boom led to a large cash reserve for the city. At the start of the fiscal year, the city had nearly $105 million in capital reserves. Of that amount, $32 million was generated through development impact fees and can only be spent on specific capital improvement projects.

Thus far the city has spent nearly $15 million of the development impact fee reserve, and continues to plan on using the remainder to continue implementing new projects. However, Evans said he would like if at all possible for the city to stay away from using the non-restricted surplus funds to make up for a loss in projected revenue.

“Considering everything, we are doing good, really good,” Wilcox-Cornn said.