Month: March, 2013
Monday, March 25, 2013
Today is Veto Day and is the last day of the 2013 Legislative Session. With no vetoed bills affecting state government employees, it's safe to say the 2013 Legislative Session was successful for state government employees and for the SDSEO. We gained $47 million in funding for the next fiscal year, putting the total expenditure for salary and benefits at nearly $950 million. Complete info on the General Appropriations Act for FY 2014 is here.
Salary increases will come July 1 in the form of a 3% across-the-board increase, movement to job worth from 0% to 3.5%, career banding from 0% to 3.5% (engineers, environmental scientists, IT software engineering, and IT technical engineering) and from 0% to 4% (accountants/auditors, nursing). Longevity pay is essentially continually funded, so is not addressed specifically.
Categories: Benefits, Legislative, SalaryMonday, March 25, 2013
The state health plan will see changes in FY 2014. FY 2014 begins July 1, 2013. The South Dakota Bureau of Human Resources proposed to the 2013 Legislature the following changes, all of which were accepted and approved as part of the budgeting process:
- 5% dependent premium increase for all plans.
- The FY 2013 rates for active employees in 2013 are here. Apply 5% to the applicable rate with a dependent to find the FY 2014 rate, which begins on July 1. Example: Employee and One Child - FY 2013 rate is $41.35 semimonthly; FY 2014 is $43.42 semimonthly; that's a 5% increase of $2.07 semimonthly.
- 12% retiree premium increase.
- The FY 2013 rates for retirees are here. Apply 12% to the applicable rate to find the FY 2014 rate.
- 5% COBRA increase.
- Co-pays removed on $500 and $1,000 deductible plans, except the ER co-pay, which remains.
The employee cost of these changes is $5.6 million; that's the amount of increase that users of the state health plan will pay over their cost in FY 2013. The $5.6 million comes from an additional $1.1 million in premiums, and $4.5 million in member cost sharing.
The state's costs are increasing as well. FY 2014 will see the state invest an additional $12.3 million in the health plan. The Legislature, in Appropriations, decided against a proposed wellness plan that would have cost an additional $8.1 million. That wellness plan would have alleviated the cost born by employees with the premium and cost-sharing changes because the bulk of the funds would have gone to employees who successfully completed quarterly wellness initiatives. There will be exploration and discussion of wellness initiatives over the summer.
Categories: Appropriations Committee, Benefits, Bureau of Human Resources, Health, Legislative, Lifetime Members, Member