City of Plattsburgh Employees who opened their first paycheck of November – got a big surprise.
All employees who have health insurance coverage through the City of Plattsburgh discovered that the deduction the city withholds for health benefits was increased – without their permission.
The city typically holds an open enrollment period twice a year – June and November. This allows employees to make changes to their existing health care coverage and to compare the rates of various health benefits offered by the city. But this year the city did not have open enrollment and just increased the deductions it withheld from employees for the current health plan they were participating in.
Mayor Donald Kasprzak has been outspoken in his campaign to get city labor unions to agree to pay more toward the cost of employee health benefits. Currently city employees only pay 15% of the total monthly premium for health benefits.
There is no word yet on what the city’s motivation was for denying its employees their right to open enrollment - or if this was the Mayors attempt to side-step the city’s labor unions in his quest to get employees to pay more towards the cost of their health benefits.
Tags: City of Plattsburgh, health benefits, health insurance, Kasprzak, Mayor, open enrollment, payroll, Plattsburgh, political, Politics, press republican, wiry, wptz
