Haywood budget shows staffing needs, rising costs

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Haywood budget shows staffing needs, rising costs

Haywood’s animal services department will trade six part-time employees for three full-time employees. File photo

As the completion of Haywood County’s 2022-23 budget draws near, it’s becoming apparent that inflation, the tight labor market and ever-increasing health care costs are conspiring against the county to the point of potentially impacting staffing, especially in public safety.

“All of our departments actually need folks,” said Bryant Morehead, county manager, at a May 2 commission meeting. “As the budget sits right now, I don’t have any of the requested positions in the budget.”

Back in February, county department heads requested 28 new positions, including four for both the sheriff’s office and EMS, as well as three each for animal services, the tax assessor’s office, the health department and social services.

All told, funding the positions would incur a recurring cost of $1.77 million if approved, but that number will almost certainly grow each year as raises, cost of living increases and health insurance costs grow.

Merit pay increases and COLA adjustments help the county attract and retain talent in a labor market that favors workers right now.

Coupled with the $175,000 cost of annual Christmas bonuses, those incentives would add another $1.73 million to the budget this year and likely more in subsequent years.

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Inflation, however, means those pay increases still aren’t enough to give county employees as much purchasing power as they used to have. Morehead said that in March the consumer price index rose by 9.2 percent, far outpacing the 5% pay increases proposed for county employees.

Then there’s health care. Double-digit percentage increases have been the norm of late, and Morehead told commissioners that health insurance has now risen $1,000 to $18,500 per full-time employee per year.

Overall, Morehead projects a 5.7% increase in health insurance costs for retired employees and a 9.4% increase for active employees, good for about $956,000 in the next budget.

That increase brings the county’s total yearly health insurance bill to nearly $11.6 million, a staggering but steady increase from 2014 when the total bill was less than $4.25 million.

But it’s not that the county hasn’t tried to keep that tab as low as possible.

The bulk of county health insurance spending is on mostly preventable conditions like hypertension, diabetes and hyperlipidemia, so the county embarked on a managed care program designed to address all conditions before they become more expensive problems.

However, only 49 employees have enrolled in the managed care program. On average, those employees saved about $1,200 in health care costs. Conversely, the 119 eligible employees who have not enrolled in the managed care program have on average seen health care costs increase by $6,300.

If all eligible employees participated, Morehead said, the county would save $382,000 a year.

“We really want to spend FY 23 getting some folks into managed care,” he said.

Ahead of the final budget presentation later this month, commissioners did get a jump on the staffing issue, at least for the county’s animal services department.

During the same May 2 meeting, Animal Services Director Howard Martin asked commissioners to replace his six temporary part-time shelter technicians with three full-time permanent technicians.

Commissioners approved the request unanimously; the positions will be paid for from lapsed salaries and will have a total budget impact this year of $9,000, according to the agenda item .

Martin thinks hiring full-time, motivated employees would help alleviate turnover.

“The employment market is extremely competitive,” said Commissioner Jennifer Best. “You can pretty well name your price and your position now.”

Individual budget meetings between Morehead and commissioners will continue through the rest of this week. The recommended budget will be presented on May 16, with a public hearing on May 31, aiming for a possible June 6 adoption vote.

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