Commissioners Court health insurance discussion raises blood pressures

Rate	Price	Duration
1 Day	$1.00	for 1 day
1 Month	$6.00	for 30 days
2 Months	$12.00	for 60 days
3 Months	$18.00	for 90 days
Six Months	$30.00	for 180 days
One Year	$50.00	for 365 days

A misunderstanding between County offices and a National Family Care (NFC) representative led to some elevated blood pressure in Tuesday’s special called session of the Rusk County Commissioners Court.

NFC representative, Steve ‘Rooster’ Rainbolt, addressed commissioners regarding county employees’ Flexible Spending Accounts, ‘Cafeteria’ plan medical insurance plans, and the company’s recent double-digit drop in NFC customers within county offices.

“National Family Care Life administrates Rusk County’s cafeteria plan and they sign off as the full fiduciary responsibility,” said Rainbolt explaining some of the significant benefits of NFC as a county resource. “We do the flex cards for y’all, free of charge. I talked to Andy earlier and he’d already checked with another company to do the flex cards and it’s going to cost the county about $10,000 a year.”

The heart of the issue was Rusk County officials’ determination that utilizing the local Service Insurance Group (SIG) would streamline open enrollments for employees.

While NFC previously handled open enrollment bookings, which allowed them face-to-face time with potential customers and led to sales along the way, the change to SIG resulted in a decrease in clients. A miscommunication left NFC’s Rainbolt believing he’d been asked to not attend the county open enrollment event when, in fact, they had been alerted that they wouldn’t be handling open enrollment bookings.

“This year I was told not to come down here,” said Rainbolt. “Why? I have not a clue. I was just told they would do the enrolling for NFC on the cafeteria plan. They did want a representative down here to if they had any questions on the policies.”

“We did what we thought was in the best interest of Rusk County and its employees,” said Rusk County Treasurer Andy Vinson defending the idea of bringing in SIG representatives to handle the open enrollment process. “We didn’t say don’t come, just that we didn’t need enrollers but the people he sent had the same opportunity to speak as New York Life and AFLAC and everyone else.”

Commissioners voted to approve allowing NFC representatives to speak at the next open enrollment event as a vendor and to address the ten recently dropped customers, effectively quelling Rainbolt’s irritations.

A 90-day interlocal agreement between the East Texas Council of Governments (ETCOG) and Rusk County was approved for assistance in updating the 9-1-1 database and mapping system and ensuring Rusk County is up to date with addressing standards.

ETCOG representatives met with East Texas 9-1-1 services last week to explore updates and corrections already in the process for the system.

Continuing with ETCOG agreements, Commissioners also approved working with the group to complete the 6-project broadband expansion happening in Rusk County. As fiber optic cables spread out throughout the county, ETCOG representative David Cleveland expressed excitement about the growth of the project and his search for federal funding to ensure this important expansion comes to fruition.

Much to the joy of Rusk County Sheriff John Wayne Valdez, Commissioners voted to approve a TIPS proposal from vendors for the repair of the Rusk County Jail facility’s roof. Upon recommendation from the committee created to oversee the minutiae of the bidding process, the Court approved the $350,518 bid from Parsons. These funds will be paid through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds.

Commissioners also approved a $6,100 annual charge for Rusk County Sheriff’s Office to take over the Cellbright Technology evidence collector, owned by Rusk-Panola County Children’s Advocacy Center.

Previously operated by Henderson Police Department, reported staff shortages led the PD to relinquish command of the system.

“Henderson Police Department no longer wants to do that,” said Valdez. “We can’t afford to let that go because we use it as much as everybody else does, probably more so.”

“This piece of machinery is crucial,” he continued. “You can’t put a value or a dollar amount on the information we can extract to bring somebody into the courtroom to get a guilty verdict.”

The alternative to utilizing the RCPCAC Cellbright system would be to ship all phones seized as evidence to a state-controlled agency that charges on a per-phone basis.

Under usual Commissioners Court business was the approval of budget amendments and transfers, payment of bills and December and January employee payroll, and court minutes from November’s regular and special called meetings.

Commissioners approved utility installations within Precincts 2, 3, and 4.