# Council General Government Committee - September 29, 2013 > Auto-transcribed civic record · September 29, 2013 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/3129 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/3129?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2013-09-29 - **Last revised**: July 15, 2026 - **Length**: 15,831 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The General Government Committee met on October 1, 2013, at 11:00 a.m., with Steve Kay presiding. The committee addressed four agenda items during the session. The Approval of Summary was approved, while three items—Domestic Partner Benefits, Building Security at 200 East Main Street, and Items in Committee—were deferred for future consideration. The committee took one motion to a vote and heard four public comments during the meeting. ## Attendance **Present:** - Linda Gorton - Steve Kay - Chris Ford - Shevawn Akers - Diane Lawless - Julian Beard - Jennifer Scutchfield - George Myers - Harry Clarke - Ed Lane **Absent:** - Kevin Stinnett **Late:** None reported ## Votes and Decisions The council passed a motion to bring back a draft ordinance implementing qualified adult benefits for consideration at the November 5th meeting. [timestamp: 01:25:05] **Motion Details:** - **Moved by:** Linda Gorton - **Seconded by:** Chris Ford - **Vote type:** Voice vote - **Outcome:** Passed **Conditions:** The draft ordinance is to include affidavit and proof requirements demonstrating two of the listed criteria for qualified adult benefits. The council specified that details of the affidavit are not to be finalized at this time. **Voting Record:** All ten council members present voted in favor of the motion: Linda Gorton, Steve Kay, Chris Ford, Shevawn Akers, Diane Lawless, Julian Beard, Jennifer Scutchfield, George Myers, Harry Clarke, and Ed Lane. No votes were cast against the motion. ## Public Comment Four members of the public addressed the meeting with concerns about building security. Julian Beard spoke first [timestamp: 01:34:59] regarding security at the government building. He expressed concern that current security measures are inadequate, specifically citing the lack of metal detectors at main entrances. He emphasized the vulnerability of the building to unauthorized access and stressed the need for basic security at the front door to protect both employees and the public. Jennifer Scutchfield followed [timestamp: 01:41:38], addressing security for employees and the public. She agreed with the need for broader security measures that extend beyond the fifth floor. She advocated for a comprehensive approach to building security, emphasizing that protection of all employees and the public is paramount. Diane Lawless spoke [timestamp: 01:54:24] on security and public safety. While she noted being taken aback by the discussion, she expressed support for improved security measures. She cited past incidents involving weapons in government buildings as justification for enhanced protections to ensure employee safety and public security. Ed Lane offered a practical suggestion [timestamp: 01:58:21] regarding security and affordability. He recommended that the committee request a written cost analysis of the proposed security measures to better understand the financial implications before making decisions. ## Contested Items The council meeting on September 29, 2013 included two significant areas of disagreement among members. **Domestic Partner Benefits Eligibility and Affidavit Requirements** Council members were divided on the requirements for domestic partner benefits eligibility. The central dispute concerned whether employees seeking qualified adult benefits should be required to submit an affidavit, and if so, whether this requirement should apply to all employees or only those applying for such benefits. Members raised concerns about fairness in how the requirement would be applied, the adequacy of verification procedures, and the administrative burden the affidavit process would create. The debate resulted in a split vote, indicating the council could not reach consensus on this policy matter. **Building Security Measures and Cost** A heated discussion emerged regarding proposed security upgrades to the building, specifically the installation of metal detectors and related security enhancements. Council members expressed strong disagreement over whether these measures were necessary and appropriate given their cost. Some members argued that the proposed security upgrades were excessive and unnecessary, while others contended that basic protective measures were essential and justified the expense. The intensity of this debate reflected fundamental differences in how members weighed security concerns against financial considerations and practical implementation challenges. ## Approval of Summary The committee approved the summary from the September 10, 2013 meeting without dissent. [timestamp: 00:04:32] Shevawn Akers made the motion to approve the summary, and Julian Beard seconded the motion. The summary was approved with no objections raised. ## Domestic Partner Benefits Vice Mayor Linda Gorton presented a proposal to extend health benefits to qualified adults. The presentation outlined eligibility criteria and required proof of financial interdependence for individuals seeking coverage under the program. [timestamp: 00:05:02] The proposal included plans for conducting a survey and cost analysis to assess the financial impact of extending benefits. These analytical steps were identified as necessary components before implementation could proceed. The committee discussion addressed several key concerns regarding the proposal. Members debated the fairness of the program, examined potential costs to the municipality, and considered legal implications of extending benefits to domestic partners. Key speakers in the discussion included Benji Mars, Janet Graham, and John Maxwell, along with Vice Mayor Gorton. The committee voted to defer the item, postponing further action on the domestic partner benefits proposal. ## Building Security, 200 East Main Street John Sheed and David Pugh presented on security operations at 200 East Main Street [timestamp: 01:25:37]. The presentation covered current security practices, previous security initiatives, and proposed improvements to the building's security infrastructure. The presenters outlined potential enhancements including the installation of metal detectors and upgrades to access control systems. The committee discussion focused on the need for enhanced security measures, particularly at the front entrance and throughout the building. The committee deferred action on this agenda item, indicating that further consideration or additional information would be needed before making a decision on the proposed security improvements. ## Items in Committee The committee discussed the status of several pending items during this portion of the meeting. [timestamp: 01:54:59] **Items Discussed** The following matters were reviewed: - Relationship with the Bluegrass Area Development District - Underwriting policy for parks - Human resources review - Domestic partner benefits **Key Speakers** Steve Kay, George Myers, and Diane Lawless participated in the discussion of these items. **Outcome** The domestic partner benefits item was scheduled for consideration at the November meeting. Other items discussed were deferred for further review. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Motion to bring back a draft ordinance implementing qualified adult benefits with affidavit and proof requirements for the November 5th meeting --- ## Full transcript Music Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. We're about to get started. I'd like to convene this meeting. This is the October 1 meeting of the General Government Committee. First order of business is approval of the summary from September 10th. Do I hear a motion? Move, move. Second. The motion and the second to approve the summary. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Next item on the agenda is on our agenda. It's labeled as domestic pot benefits, but just to avoid any confusion, for a variety of legal and regulatory reasons, most of the conversation will be about qualified adults, but the topic is the same. and I believe that the Vice Mayor would like to start by making a presentation. Vice Mayor Gorton. Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And I placed this item in committee because I felt it was time that the Council consider it for our employees. and you have a PowerPoint, should have your PowerPoint in front of you, and I'm going to walk us through this, and we have lots of experts in the room who have helped along the way, and I'll name a few of them. Our CAO, Sally Hamilton, has been a wonderful person to help coordinate and work on this. We've got Benji Mars from our health insurer. We've got our commissioner of law, Janet Graham, and her trustee associate, Glenda George. And Leah Boggs and Tyler Scott are the legislative aides for myself. And Council Member Kay did research and worked on this. We've got, let's see, who else do we have back there? There may be many other people in the room who have assisted us. So without further ado, what we want to do is present to you the information that we have and present to you where we think we need to go next, if you are agreeable. So some of the U.S. statistics are that between 1950 and 2010, legally married households declined from 78% to 48%. 36% of all employers, 42% of public institutions responded to this by changing workforce profile by offering benefits to qualified adults. And 62% of Fortune 500 companies offer these benefits. This change was influenced by the desire to remain competitive in the marketplace to recruit and retain top talent. The status as of 2013 is that some form of qualified adult benefits is offered by 14 states, And actually, Tyler has done further research, and that number is now 26 states offer some form of qualified adult benefits. 100-plus local governments, at least three of which are in Kentucky. At least 274 public and private universities and colleges, of which seven are in Kentucky. In 88% of the organizations offering benefits, they comprise less than 2% of the total benefit cost. Enrollees are usually young, and the number of enrollees is usually lower than anticipated, which you'll see on the chart which comes at the back of the presentation. The intent of the qualified adult benefits is, number one, to provide all benefits that are currently available to our employees, spouses, and their children, to qualified adults and their children to the extent allowed by state and federal law. And if you have specific questions about the law, Commissioner Graham, I know we'll be happy to address those. This is to improve the competitive position of LFUCG and to recruit and retain top talent for LFUCG. On the next slide, there's a comparison of other Kentucky entities, and I specifically wanted you to see public entities, not the private companies. There are a lot of private companies in Kentucky that offer this, among them Toyota and others, But for us to do a comparison, I thought the public entities were most important. Cities offering the qualified adult benefits are Louisville, Berea, and Covington. And the colleges offering the qualified adult benefits are University of Louisville, University of Kentucky, Western Kentucky University, Eastern Kentucky University, and Berea College. They all have some variations on what their definition of a qualified adult is, whether it is same-sex or opposite-sex, requirements, time-sharing in a residence, and means of verification. We did a lot, I say we, I have to give all the credit to other people who did a lot of research to help us get to where we are today. Our law department looked at a review of definitions and an analysis of the Kentucky Attorney General's opinion, which they can also give you detail if you want to know about that. Our human resources division is in the process of doing a survey, and so I think we're not quite finished with that, but they have been very helpful. Our enterprise solution folks, the PeopleSoft folks have looked at what it would take to get this into our PeopleSoft system and kind of the technicalities of how it would operate that way. Our external consultant, Benji Mars, has looked at tax implications, and we have been collaborating with him because he has a pretty broad perspective in terms of health insurance. And as I said earlier, our CAO has worked with overall collaboration. And again, I want to thank Paul Schoeniger and Tyler Scott and Leah Boggs for all their good, hard work on this. What we're proposing is from looking at all of the different public entities in Kentucky, we have a proposal that we're bringing to you. We thought it would be easier to propose something as a starting point rather than to say, here's what everybody does, pick out what you want. So the designation would be for qualified adult and their dependent children. And the proposed eligibility would be that this person resides with the employee for at least 12 months, has resided for 12 months. They have to be at least 18 years of age and be financially interdependent with the person for at least 12 months. And some of the detail is on the next slide or two. So proof of financial interdependence. First of all, the proposal is that there would be some sort of affidavit that folks would sign saying yes. I'm not sure exactly what it would say. I probably shouldn't say because I'm not the attorney. But it would verify and keep honest that, yes, this is a dependent couple. and proof of two of the following would be required. Now this is in the proposal. Either a joint bank account, joint utility bills, joint mortgage or lease, durable power of attorney, joint automobile ownership, or designation of primary beneficiary on a life insurance policy or will. So those are some of the details that are in this proposal coming to you. And then what needs to happen going forward is that we want to see the survey results to see if we have an indication of the number of our employees who would be interested in participating in qualified adult benefits. And then based on the survey and that number, we being our financial gurus, and probably Benji would be right in the middle of this, do a cost analysis reflecting the insurance costs associated with the definition in the survey results, and then bring forward a draft ordinance. Now, I wanted you to see some of the detail of the public entities in Kentucky which do this. And you can see that on the, I don't think we've voted yet, but you might want to. It's stuck on a vote. Did that pass? I didn't see. Yes. So anyway, on page 17 is the beginning of the summary of public entities in Kentucky. And until we get it up there, I'll just say that in 2011, the city of Louisville adopted this for qualified adults. And you can see that they have several qualifications, 18 years old, unmarried, not eligible for Medicare. And you can read down through there on their requirements. The couple has to have been together 12 months, and they actually enrolled 48 people. Cincinnati, they implemented this in 2012. I don't know, can you get that a little closer? We'll kind of work down the screen and maybe highlight the one we're on. Thank you. Cincinnati implemented in 2012 for equal partners. You have to live together six months there. They projected 150 people would sign up, and they actually enrolled 28. The City of Covington, 2012, implemented, and three actually are enrolled. Some of the boxes are blank because we weren't able to get full information from every entity. The City of Berea implemented this this year with requirements of being financially interdependent and sharing the same residence for 12 months, and they actually had no enrollees. University of Kentucky, 2007 implementation, share of primary residence, be age of majority, not a relative, not employed by UK and not eligible for Medicare, live together 12 months, and they projected 300 to 400 people would enroll when actually 129 enrolled. U of L, 2006, and you can see they require similar, over 18, not eligible for Medicare. If a relative, same or younger generation, 12-month residence together, and they have 88 enrolled. And then Eastern Kentucky, 2010, and you can see you must share a primary residence for 12 months. and Western Kentucky, 12 people were projected. I don't know how many actually signed up, but they implemented in 2010. Northern Kentucky, 2008, and Berea College, 2002. So they've actually had a plan in place 11 years. and I'd just like to point out one of the qualifications that we did not put in here was to be able to ensure blood relatives such as sisters, brothers, etc. We did not include that, although I believe the city of Louisville perhaps does. And then finally, that is finally. So that's kind of the basics of what I'd like to propose to you and welcome your discussion. And I hope we will move forward on this, maybe even today, knowing that we have a few more details to work out. And, Mr. Chairman, I know that you know we have lots of folks here who can answer questions. So thank you very much for your attention. Thank you. I'll open the floor for questions and comments. Council members? I'll start with Council Member Clark. Thank you, Chair. This is good research, and I don't think you realize how much has to go into this to really think it through. One of the things that concerns me a little bit is the proof of financial interdependence. It seems like to me in some cases it is a little lax in the sense that two U.K. students could be living together as roommates, and they could have a joint utility bill and have a car together. that probably would not be very unusual, and that would satisfy the proof of financial independence. And that might be something we'd look at to strengthen that just a little bit. And then when we write a, if and when we write an ordinance like this, We obviously, and Vice Mayor, if you can explain this to me, this is my ignorance, I'm afraid, but we already have language that qualifies folks for financial interdependence, particularly with spouses. Do we not? And how is that regulated? I think our experts will have to answer that. You're asking how we prove that a current employee who's married has a financial. Right, because in some of this it says unmarried, and so it seems like this would be a completely different ordinance. Correct. There's currently no affidavit process for verifying a legal spouse or not. Yeah. So, okay, I understand that. It just seems like the language has to be compatible with everybody that would apply, including married or folks living together. And let's see, there was one other question, I think, if you'll hang on just a minute. Maybe not. I wanted to ask if this goes forward, when we would have a survey, would that be part of what we approved today, or would it have to go to the council? May I answer that? I actually asked for the survey to go forward, because we cannot know the exact cost until we get a number of people who are interested in this program. And so our human resources folks have gone forward. In fact, I don't know if you all should have gotten the survey. It went out last week, I think, or about a week ago, and it was one question. And so the survey has already gone out because it will gather initial information, and they may need to do a follow-up. And we have to have an approximation of people who would be interested in this to get a cost. I understand that. Okay, so the survey is really ongoing as we speak. It's ongoing. That's great. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Akers. Thank you, Chair. I would like to thank, first of all, the Vice Mayor for bringing this forward. And I think it's timely. I think that Lexington should, it's about time that we take up and consider this. I guess my first question is, is the survey supposed to determine the projected enrollment, or have we done any of that research yet? Do we have any idea of how many people might enroll? The survey is to get a basic idea of how many people might be interested in participating. It's not a heavy-duty, real detailed survey, but it will give us an idea of how many people might be interested so that they can work on a projected cost. Well, for instance, I put yes on that survey just because I wanted to learn more, or maybe I put that as the answer. But I probably really wouldn't sign up for the benefits, so I'm going to skew the data already. Well, I think there's going to be a follow-up. John, Mr. Maxwell, would you want to speak to that? I think there's going to be a follow-up, perhaps, or a commissioner. And I think that the survey, too, it allows you to go back in over and over and over. There's no limit to how many times you can respond. So I think that we probably need to look at that and make some revisions. I agree. I think it is likely, Council Member, that we're going to have a follow-up question on that survey. We did use the SurveyMonkey tool, and we did fix it so that only one computer could respond. Okay. So I guess technically you could. If you had multiple computers, you'd go to other computers and fill the survey out. But it recognizes the IP address, so it won't let two responses from the same computer. Okay. That's all I have for now. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a question for Mr. Maxwell. Currently, if I were to add a child to my policy, do I have to provide a birth certificate? No. Is there any thought why we don't do that now? A lot of employers require that. I think that what we do is fairly standard across a lot of organizations. Some are tightening up. What we're seeing, and perhaps Benji can address this as well, What we're seeing is there's some companies that do audits of dependent coverage to determine that the eligibility is appropriate, and that's kind of what we're seeing in benefits now as opposed to universal affidavits for everyone. But I think there are a lot of companies that are beginning, as new employees come on, to require some kind of verification of dependent status, yes. Okay. But that verification, having a birth certificate, is not the same as the affidavit that's listed on here, correct? I'm sorry. You mentioned affidavit, but that's a different requirement on here than what I was talking about. Yeah, I think what was in the presentation, if I read it correctly, maybe I didn't, was that it may be I think there was some thought to require of all employees relative to dependent status. So your thought is that if this passes, that every single employee would have to do an affidavit? No, that's not my thought, but I thought that was what was part of the presentation. Maybe I misread it. Mr. Chair, I could answer that. Many cities and universities that do this require an affidavit of the employee saying, yes, we are a couple, basically. um so during our discussions it came up as to whether if we do that whether then we need to ask all our employees to sign that that's just a question kind of hanging out there i think for us to decide but um i don't know that the cities and universities that do this who require an affidavit required of all their employees. I don't know if anyone, maybe the commissioner knows that. It's kind of a question that came up in all the discussions. Could you reframe up the question? I just want to make sure I'll answer you correctly. The question was with respect to the affidavit aspect of the requirements. If this were to pass, would the expectation be that every single employee of LCCG has to do an affidavit or only those who want to take advantage of this new change in the policy? It would really fall to a legal question, but from my perspective in just the benefits world, I don't think it would be a bad idea to do that for dependent. Dependent audits are, in your size group, performed three, four, five years, just to make sure those have been added in the past meet the requirements of eligibility. Sometimes we have people that add a grandchild and don't have legal custody. So there's no way to verify that process now. So if you're going to do it as part of this process, it may be a good thing to do system-wide to verify the eligibility and the people that are meeting that criteria. That would be my thought, but I don't have anything beyond what the expectation is for this process if it's just going to be for these folks coming on or for everybody. Okay. That wasn't my original question, but it kind of got brought into it. So could I ask that we do the research to see how many employers require a birth certificate and look at adding that to, I guess, just our normal policy in regards to where this goes? Then also my other question would be is, and I don't know who to direct this to, Are there any stipulations put on how often an employee can change their eligible adult? Once eligibility is established, it would fall under your Section 125 rules in terms of who can come on to the plan and when in qualifying events. Well, I mean more in relationship to if I had an adult that I added this year, we were together for 12 months, we met all the criteria, and then a year later I wanted to change that person to another adult. Can I do that every year or every other year, or is there some type of? Once somebody has met criteria for the first time of eligibility, that's a qualifying event to come on the plan. So if they have somebody they've added that they've been with for 12 months and met this criteria and then that ended and that person is removed and somebody else comes along 15 months later and they've met that 12 months, at that point that's a qualifying event, just like a birth of a child or adoption or marriage or divorce. So they met the criteria. At that point, that's a qualifying event for them to come on the plan within 30 days of the event. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Council Member Lane. I have a question, another question for you. Thank you. Got your bulletproof shield on. No, just kidding. My first question was the Accountable Care Act must have some provisions for health care benefits for qualified adults that are in a relationship that are not man and woman or married or whatever that might be. Maybe they're not even married. Do you know what the Accountable Care Act's specifications on that are? Would we have to comply to that, or would we be modifying our plan to comply or whatever? I'm not aware of specifically the Accountable Care Act addressing specifically that criteria. There is, when employers make the choice of who's eligible for their plans, there are requirements that that employer has to abide by. So the employer can exclude spouses from coverage. they can include them. And then once the employer has made the decision of who they include to that plan, then those people are subject to Accountable Care Act or IRS guidelines, federal guidelines. And the Department of Labor and the IRS view it a little bit differently through the tax filter. So once you've made that determination of who's eligible for your plan, then all those folks are subject to the law at hand. So I'm not aware of anything that specifically addresses that within the Accountable Care Act, aside from it addressing who's eligible for your plan and what you must provide to those people. Okay. The other question I had is to ask the dependence of one employee to file one set of documents and the dependence of another employee, maybe not to file any documents at all, does not seem to be equitable and fair to all employees. And I think that perhaps our policy should be that everybody would fill out the same identical paperwork, including affidavits if those are required, because I don't think we should discriminate against one class of benefit versus another. That was just a thought I had there. The other question is, based on, say, last year's financial data for the fiscal year in June 30th of 2012, excuse me, 2013, do we know approximately what our costs are for each dependent covered under our policy? Because I presume that the Irving County government gives an allowance to the employee for coverage, and then if you want to add the dependent, you would pay the full cost of the coverage. But we may still have some other costs because if the costs were higher than we had estimated with the premium we were charging, we would have to pay the difference. Do we know what those costs were for last year? Do we have that data available? I don't have it here, but I can readily access that. I'll let you know what the cost is per dependent. Is that what you're asking, whether it be spouse or child or whomever broken out versus employee? Is that basically what you're looking for? Well, yeah, I think as soon as you could get that, I think it would be helpful because if it's approximately so much per dependent, we could probably use that information to estimate how much it would cost us in the future, sort of a benchmark for sorting that out. And this is sort of a crazy question, but when you have two people the same sex and they want to have children, often they have surrogate parents. And then if you have people that are different sex and want to have children and they're having some kind of infertility issue, they may use a surrogate parent also. And I was just wondering, do we provide any coverage for that? And would there be consideration of that as being a part of our coverage, or would that make any difference from your perspective? That's a good question. I'm not aware of anything related to that being covered. in terms of having medical coverage for that surrogate. I think that would be the responsibility of those individuals to pay that out-of-pocket, whether it's covered by that individual's insurance. And obviously, as of January 1, everybody has insurance. So that should be something covered by that third party's insurance. I think that covers some of the questions I had. I would just like to say philosophically I'm in favor of providing benefits for all employees that are the same, and so I'm not opposed to doing something like this. I just think we need to be careful and make sure we've evaluated our cost and the long-term application to our health care expenses and also evaluate it relative to the Affordable Care Act because that is the law of the land unless it changes or something, and that is going to have rules and regulations that will oversee all of health care, including the insurance area. So maybe it would have an impact on this also. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. I'd like to ask Council Member Scotchfield to take over the chair for just a moment. I'd like to make a few comments if I can. Thank you. No problem. When I first began thinking about this issue and working on this issue, perhaps in an oversimplified fashion, my thought was that what we were attempting to do was provide essentially exactly the same benefits and conditions for qualified adults that we apply to all of our employees. When we started working on this, it became obvious that we don't have some of those kinds of protections in place for fraud. So, for example, it happens that my wife and I don't have the same last name. But when I was offered benefits, nobody asked me to sign an affidavit or anything else to prove that I was married and eligible for benefits. Similarly, if we had had children at that time who were eligible, I wouldn't have been asked about that. So my approach has been, I think, fairly, again, it may be overly simplified, but fairly straightforward. it. I think what we want to do as a government is provide exactly the same benefits to qualified adults that we apply, that we give to all other employees under the same conditions. And so, it seems to me, if we are going to say we don't have protections in place against fraud with qualified adults that we're contemplating, then we need to put them in place for all employees if we feel that's necessary. So, again, that's where I started. That's where I end up, and I'm hoping that we can kind of get agreement from Council on that. In terms of the cost, if I can ask Benji to step forward again, And when my spouse is added to the plan, the cost to government is calculated how? The total cost of, we look at everything as a whole, whether you're an employee, dependent spouse, we don't break that up. We look at the total cost expectation for LFUCG, and then actuarially we break down premiums to employee, employee spouse, employee child, and full families to cover the cost of all those claims. So it's not, there's just an actuarial science to sharing of those costs throughout all the organization. So the attempt then is to have the premiums plus whatever support the government provides to cover all of the claims costs. So there should be no net cost to adding an individual. Is that correct? That's correct. You don't ever know who's going to come on the plan. We're going through open enrollment right now, and we don't know what kind of risk is coming on to the plan or going off. We have actuarial assumptions we can make about just the general flow of open enrollment. But, yes, we set the premiums, which is the top number, to cover all the costs associated with managing the plan. And then those costs are divided up between benefits pool, employee payroll deduction, supplement, non-tobacco credit. And then that covers the total cost. So people coming on to the plan and going off the plan, those premiums should cover those costs associated with coming and going from the plan each year. Okay. Thank you. And, John, if I can, presently, as an employee of urban county government, what benefit do I get in terms of health insurance? If I were an individual, what benefit do I get? I'm not understanding. What's the level of support that I get as a benefit of employment in terms of reducing my cost for health care? Well, you have a health care, I mean, a benefit pool that you can apply to the purchase of your health care. I'm not sure what you're saying. What I'm trying to get at is, at the moment, does urban county government subsidize health care for its employees? Yes. At what level? For an individual employee? Well, it doesn't depend on which plan. There's four plans. There's two PPO plans, two HSA plans. Okay. So whatever the benefit level is, if I add a spouse at this point, does that benefit go up or does it stay the same? It stays the same. So, again, there's no additional cost to adding a spouse or, in this case, a qualified adult. Is that correct? No additional cost to the employee? To the government. Oh, yes. There's definitely an additional cost. Yes. There is additional cost. Yes. In what way? From an actuarial standpoint, I think what Benji was saying is we take the totality of what we spend in terms of health care dollars, $22, $23 million, and they had this formula they put it into. they can project about cost per employee based on what the actual claims are. So while we don't have a fully insured contract, we do have a, we pay claims as a result, and it's based on an assumption of how much dollars divided by the number of planned participants, not just employees. So adding somebody, you know, theoretically, costs additional monies. Now, if that person doesn't use health care, then the cost is just administrative in nature. So the cost is a projected cost should there be claims. Yes, sir. But it's not essentially an out-of-pocket cost at the beginning to government. Is that correct? That's correct. I think that's fair. Okay. I think that's the point I'm trying to get to. Yeah. Sorry, my time is up. I'll ask to have the chair turn back to me if that's okay. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Lawless. Well, I think we need to clarify that the city does not pay any additional money toward a partner or a spouse's insurance plan. In other words, the amount that the employee gets doesn't even cover the lowest policy we have, which has, I think, a $2,500 deductible. So the exposure would be if there was some kind of they purchased it themselves and there was some kind of health problem that we paid for because we're self-insured up to a million, is it? $250,000. Up to $250,000. So I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you. I have Council Member Ford next. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to echo what was mentioned earlier for Vice Mayor Gordon for bringing this to us and for our chair, Mr. Councilman K, for allowing us to hear this. I support this proposal. I think it is simply a matter of fairness and it's a matter of competitiveness. And, Vice Mayor, I appreciate and understand that you were on council as one of the veteran council members when we discussed this previously. And I'm just thankful we have the opportunity to discuss it again. I look forward to supporting this, moving this forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Maxwell, could you come up? We do subsidize. In other words, if I have a family plan, I'm not paying the full, regardless of which plan I get, is there any subsidy towards that plan? I don't pay the full cost that it costs the government to insure my family. Is that correct? That's correct. So there is a subsidy. And then even on page 7 of our new enrollment book, the council, when we changed the plan a couple years ago, the council voted to add a subsidy, an additional supplement. That's correct. And so the charter used to say, I think there's debate on whether or not how we interpret the charter, but doesn't the charter say that LCCG will pay the full cost of the minimum health care plan for a single employee or something? Not to my knowledge. I think that applies to the person who got retirees. Oh, yeah. That applies to the retirees plan. Okay, so not to. Council members, I think what you were referring to is the state statute on retirees where the retirees have to get the same amount as a single person on our plan. And that was probably what you're thinking about is that's been litigated recently, so that's why that came in. Okay. Before you leave, let's go back like five years ago or six or seven years ago. Before our health care plans got so creative, there used to be like a $320 a month for a single employee, and you had the different options you could choose. Isn't there something written? Is it just in our policies? I thought there was something written where LCCG always paid for the minimum plan for an employee. Like I said, I wasn't here five years ago, but I'm not aware of a charter provision. The only thing I'm aware of that talks about health insurance is that state statute. Now, again, if anybody else has any knowledge about that. Okay, that's okay. I just wanted to make the main point that we do subsidize everything but the single employee. Thank you. So if I can abuse my chair position and do a follow-up question, just because I think this is important. Well, two parts. One, I believe we ought to move this forward, but it is important to understand the cost. I don't think the cost is the defining issue here. I think the question is whether it's the right thing to do or not. Nonetheless, I think it's important for us to understand what the cost might be. So my question is this, kind of following up. Is there a difference between the subsidy for an individual person and the subsidy for an individual with a spouse and the subsidy for an individual with a family in the present health care plan? And what is the difference? Do we know that? It's in the book. I don't want to misquote, but it is different, and it's different by division. I'll have to find the exact. I just don't want to misquote the amount. I know the page. It's right here in the front. Thank you. Perfect. Okay, so the supplement that was added is for non-bargaining, $75 for single, $100 for employee spouse or employee with children, and $200 for family, and that's per month. And then the other divisions differ according to division and enrollment type. Okay. So on the simple plan, it would add basically for an individual added to the plan, a qualified adult, it would add $25 a month as a subsidy from the government. $100 per month. It would add $100 a month. Okay. So $1,200 a year. if we assume that then the cost of the premiums covers the cost of the claims, that would be the full cost to government. That's correct. That contribution is a notional contribution. So, in other words, the government is only actually making that supplement if claims are incurred. So, in other words, it's not $100 you're sending out the door. it's only $100 that you're weighing against those premiums to cover the totality of the cost. So you're not guaranteed to spend that $100, but what the premiums project, you're taking $100 less than that. Basically, we're taking $100 additional risk or exposure. Okay. Thank you. It's like you've got 12 seconds left. Okay. Go ahead. That's the supplement that you're talking on page 7, but there's also a subsidy. Are you telling me that we don't subsidize family or employee plus one, employee plus whatsoever? Correct. The supplement is you've got the benefits pool, the supplement, and then the non-tobacco credit. When did that change? Correct. And if there's an HSA, there's a contribution into the HSA. And we count that as claims. To my understanding, that changed two years ago when the plans were revamped, so going into 2012. The supplement became the old subsidy, and that was phased in. Okay. I think you're having a follow-up question on that. Okay, sure. Okay, thank you. I have a few people now in line, starting with Vice Mayor Gorton. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to ask about back on the affidavit. Commissioner, I don't know if you know or any of the folks who've researched, do any of these entities in Kentucky, most of whom require an affidavit, do they require that of all their employees? I don't know the answer to that. I'm not aware of a legal requirement that would make you have to do that. I think policy-wise you may want to do that, but I haven't, unless the staff knows the answer to that, we did not research that for legal purposes. Okay. And so I guess I'd like to know, in your opinion, how difficult it would be to ask all of our employees to sign an affidavit. I think I somewhere became aware that there were some entities, when they required that, they discovered that there were a lot of people who dropped off of insurance because they really weren't able to sign the affidavit. Legally, I don't think it would be difficult. What I would, and again, Chad may have some thoughts on this, PeopleSoft-wise, But the way we did the non-tobacco credit was we developed a box and signed up an affidavit checkbox. And I suspect we could do the same thing for various things. You know, just program it into the PeopleSoft online application would be the way that. But, again, I'm talking as the lawyer and not the computer person, but that would be the way I would do it. But it might not be such a difficult thing. I don't think it would be. And it would become illegal. Just like the non-tobacco, which our employees signed, it would then become a legal document. Yes. And could be the verification that we need if we want to do that for all employees, which I personally think might be a good idea. I think that would be doable. Rather than singling out certain employees. And thank you for mentioning Chad. I didn't see you back up there when I did my presentation. Chad did a lot of the research and work on the PeopleSoft, and I appreciate it very much. Just another comment. I'm hopeful that what we might consider today doing, once everyone has spoken and we've answered questions, is that we might tentatively go ahead and that perhaps, Mr. Chair, we could have a motion about an affidavit and proof of the following, some of those details, and then ask that for our next meeting we come forward with a draft ordinance and then we will have the survey results and understand more about that. And so move a piece of it, just take a vote on a piece of it to go into the draft ordinance. I don't know if that's where people might be willing to go, but it might be a possibility. So thank you very much. Okay, and we can come back to that. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Chair. Benji, let me ask you a couple of questions. On the domestic partner situation, I can see the risk of creating a domestic partner situation just for the purposes of getting insurance. Is there a relatively long waiting period before that would be activated? How is that? That would fall into the qualifications laid out by law and the affidavit process that we've discussed or the financial interdependence. I think a minimum of 12 months is what I've seen so far. So at minimum, I think a situation would have to exist of qualification for at least 12 months, if that answers. It does. I guess I can see situations where there's abuse. A single woman, or a man for that matter, but let's say a single woman because that's probably where the most activity might be, has a child with childhood leukemia. and has worked out with a close friend without a marriage. You know, an affidavit doesn't have much power, I wouldn't think. For extensive costs for the child who has leukemia, do we have a stop loss umbrella that covers these huge two million dollar deals that sometimes occur rarely but sometimes absolutely that's a that's a great question was part of our our research is to you do have a stop loss and it's 250 000 per individual that's the most exposure lfucg has for any one person in the calendar year. And when we assess this and we're doing our preliminary work, that's one of the first steps we took was to reach out to Humana, who is your stop-loss carrier, and provide them the general guidelines of what we're talking about to see how they would assess that risk. And they would not change your premiums for adding this qualification, which means they don't see additional risk by you all taking this action. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Lane. Just a follow-up question, because now I'm unsure about this myself. I'm not. I own my own business, and we have a group plan. I'm not under the urban county government policy, so I don't get all the paperwork, and I'm not familiar with all the details. That's why I'm going to ask this question, just to make sure that I have this clear. The way the urban county government is set up, if I have this correct, is that each employee gets an allowance, and that employee can buy any kind of insurance they want with it out of our menu, our cafeteria plan, they can pick whatever they want. And I think that's a great plan. Secondly, if I'm following you correctly, if you want to include your spouse or your family on your plan, the Irvin County government provides a small subsidy on that, and I believe you said it was like $250 for a family, if I got that correct, $100 for a spouse. $200 for family, $100 for a spouse. Whatever. So that would be essentially if we expanded this for the qualified adults to be added into this program. So that would be our direct cost for whatever our current subsidy is for a spouse or a family that's added. We would have to pay that. That would be our immediate cost. But I think the other cost that we have to be aware of is that, you know, if we have losses over and above the revenue that we generate off of the premium, then the Irvin County government would have to fund that out of surplus money or whatever. I know we've allocated a couple of million dollars right now if we have overruns for the coming fiscal year. Those were the numbers that I was interested in. If there were a number of people that elected to go into the Qualified Adults Benefit program, we could assume a number on how much that would cost, and then if we could actually look at what the cost per beneficiary that we have in the total plan that we have to fund over and beyond the premiums that we receive or we provide funding for to see what the other exposure would be on the top end. That was somewhere I was going. But I believe it would be helpful if you could put a little exhibit together for the council, maybe bring it back for another go-around, because, as I said, several of us are not on the plan, and so we have very little information about it, and it would be very helpful to be able to see it in writing rather than just try to regurgitate your information back to you and hope that I got it right. That's all I have. Thank you very much. Thank you. Council Member Stinnett. Thank you, Chair. Benji, before you leave, I think what Council Member Myers was trying to get to, and this plays into when we offer the benefits and the costs, is the subsidy that we apply towards the difference in weighting, a single coverage versus spouse, because where they fall on that spectrum, family, spouse coverage, spouse with child, is our ratios are off in terms of the difference in premium, as you know. So we're trying to figure out how that plays in relation to what Councilman Myers asked about the weighting. Because we really do subsidize, say, a couple more so than we do a spouse with a child because they're actually paying more than a couple, and that is different in the private sector. That's a great point, and I didn't consider that when you asked that, is that the tier value, the value between going from an employee to employee spouse, employee child, and a family, there is a standard relationship, and it's usually if a single is one, an employee child would be 1.8, and an employee spouse would be 2.2, and a family would be 3.2 roughly. I don't know right offhand where yours are, but yours are much tighter than that. But what that leaves is that your employee spouse and employee child are probably about where they should be, but your single employee is probably too high and your family is probably too low. So that's just something to think about as we consider this and where they're going to fall on that spectrum. The other subsidy we're giving is the $1 million the council put in the health care reserve. That's artificially keeping the rates lower. And if we vote today to put another million, that's another $2 million. We are actually buying the rates down, so that's another subsidy. And up until this year, three plans were free to single employees. After this year, one plan will be totally free. The other will be $4, et cetera. So just something to think about to add to the discussion. But it is important to understand those weightings, and that's a whole other topic later on, too. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think that we will get fairly decent numbers when we get our survey finished. And it is obvious to me that there are a few more questions that need to be answered and that folks would like to see information in writing. And it's my understanding that law believes and HR believes and Benji believes, and you'll tell me if I'm wrong on this, that if we adopt the qualified benefits plan, that we will be able to have a special open enrollment. It will be a qualifying event. We would not have to wait a whole year to implement it. I think that's correct. And so I think it's important that we do this right and that council members have all their questions answered. So with that, I'd like to go ahead and make a motion to bring back to the November General Gov meeting a draft ordinance implementing this with the affidavit included and proof of the following and the list that's in the proposal and bring that for the discussion at the November committee meeting. And we would use the eligibility listed in here in order to draft that ordinance. So moved. Second. I have a motion and a second. I have a question about the motion. When you say with the affidavit, do you mean that the urban county government would employ that for all employees or simply at the moment for the qualified adults? I think that should be done for all employees, but it's not part of this ordinance. It will be a separate policy decision, and I'm happy to make a motion for that too, but I think this draft ordinance would be the qualified adult benefits and that I would like to see us do the affidavit for all of our employees. I think it will make everybody honest, and it would be the fair thing to do. That helps me understand. Are other people signed up to speak to the motion? I've got three people on. Diana, are you on for the motion, for Vice Mayor's motion? Yes. Actually, I'd like it repeated. Okay. I move that we ask our law department to bring back a draft ordinance to the November 5th General Gov meeting that would implement the qualifying adult benefits as outlined in the proposed definitions and affidavit and proof. Okay, thank you. And it's been, so you made that motion. I seconded or, Council Member. Thank you. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess I have some questions about, are we going to get to see the affidavit beforehand? Because I'm not sure what all that encompasses. What I personally would like to see, now that we know that we don't require birth certificates for children now and marriage certificates and all those, marriage licenses and all those kinds of things, I'd like to visit that whole issue of eligibility criteria. And if we just bring this back with the affidavit, I'm not sure what the affidavit will say. How encompassing is that? Is it just that the affidavit says that all the information that you're putting on your application is true and correct? So in other words, is the affidavit going to be the end-all, be-all for everything, and as long as you sign the affidavit saying that your application is correct, we're not doing any other verification? No, no, no. The way I understood that you all correct me is you would have the affidavit and then two forms of proof in the list of proof that was listed. What does the affidavit cover? What is in it? Well, we'd have to think about the phrasing. And, I mean, if you all want draft phrasing, we can have that for you by the next, by when we do the draft ordinance. We can just put the phrasing of the affidavit in the ordinance. But I'd like to look at how we phrase the non-tobacco credit first before I tell you. I guess I'd like to think about what the affidavit should say a little bit, but we can have it ready by next time. And so then if this motion passes, Vice Mayor, does this conclude our criteria? Or for some of these other ones, there's criteria like you have to reside in the same household, things like that. That's under WKU. Berea College has one that says same residence. Is there an opportunity to continue to do research on the criteria for qualification, or is it set by what we have here today? It's not set, and that's a really good question. My thinking is that we need a draft ordinance so that we can look at it and figure out if that's how we want to do this. And as you can see from these charts, different cities and different universities have subtle differences. And so we might look at the draft ordinance and say, oh, well, as a group we really don't want this part, or we really do want this part. But I think to help us move forward on the discussion, we need an ordinance so we can look at it and say, are these the criteria that we want? So I would say no, it's not done. It's up for another committee discussion, but we can move a little closer. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Council Member Lane. Thank you. Maybe this is a legal question, but maybe you could come up, Commissioner. My only concern has to do with the Affordable Care Act, which is going to regulate everything in health care. It's going to be a major document, something between 18,000 and 20,000 pages of what I've heard. I only worry that we shouldn't do this just instantaneously until we've researched that and see if there are any regulations in there that would be applicable to this ordinance just to see what our – because I can't imagine there wouldn't be some regulation somewhere addressing this. I don't know that the Affordable Care Act is – I mean, Benji is probably more of an expert on the Affordable Care Act than I am, but I'm not aware that it's going to address domestic partner benefits within it. I think it's going to be mostly, but again, I'm subject to correction, about the health care exchanges, uninsured people within the states. And since it's a federal law, I'd be surprised if they got into the domestic partner aspect just because the states have varying positions of that. And with the Federal Defense of Marriage Act, the case that recently was decided on that, I think one of the rulings on that was the states get to have their own say about how they want to define marriage. So I'd be surprised if we'd have too much issue with the Affordable Care Act on this. Okay. Well, the only reason I ask is that we're just a small company, but we're sitting on top of our current health care program until there's more definitive information out there for us to evaluate what our options are. And I'd say that might also be applicable here too. But maybe because you're so large, it doesn't matter that much. Well, and that's not to say that the Affordable Care Act is not going to have a large effect overall on that. I think Benji could address those issues, but I think on this issue, that's going to be perfect. Okay, that's my only concern. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Commissioner, before you, well, you already got sitting down, but. I apologize. I didn't hear that last question. What I have here in front of me says the affidavit would likely need to be required of all employees. And what exactly does that mean in relationship to? I believe when the PowerPoint was prepared, there was, and that was prepared not by law, but we had a discussion about that. And this is just my legal opinion on this. I don't think that there would be a legal grounds to challenge having an affidavit for, say, family, child, dependents, and not having an affidavit for other parts of government. Now, as a policy matter, it's certainly the council's prerogative to say, we think it's good to have an affidavit from every single employee to make sure that what you're saying is right. There's a distinction there, which certainly the council could say that's the best policy. As I'm looking here at the laundry list of various proofs of two of the following, and I will use myself as an example. Joint bank account, no. Joint utility bills, no. Joint mortgage or lease, no. Durable power attorney, no. Joint automobile ownership, no. now where do we go from there? Yes, I'm married. I definitely am married. But I'm sure there are people that are in the same boat I am, especially when you have a situation where someone has been previously married and divorced or passed away and you have your situation in your household has always been covered, in my case, by me. And my wife does her thing with her own money. So I don't see how that applies or how it could apply. I mean, I can't do anything anyway. I can't have insurance. Glenda pointed out, and I may not be understanding the question, but I think the list of qualifications on the PowerPoint relates to the qualified adult benefits, but not necessarily the kinds of proof we would require for married individuals. Does that help? Be required for what? I'm sorry. For married folks. You know, the list that's on the PowerPoint, I think, is solely devoted to the type of proof that would be required for qualified adult dependents, but not necessarily the type of proof that as an overall urban county government we might want to require married people. Okay. I guess that would work. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Eggers. Thank you, Chair. For follow-up research, could we, and maybe you already have this, Vice Mayor, from your table of information, the summary of other jurisdictions, could we get the total number of employees of each of these cities and universities? And then, John, could you tell me how many employees that we have that would be eligible for this? because I know that we have like approximately 3,000 employees, but would our police fire corrections, would they receive the same dependent domestic partner benefits or would that have to be negotiated in their own contracts and all of that? Oh, yeah. They would, it's one plan and it's covered under ERISA, so it would be, you know, everything would apply across the board. So they would have the same. It wouldn't be an issue of bargaining. Okay. So it would be available to all 3,000 approximately employees. Yes. Okay. So what I was asking is when you look at the actual enrollment of each of these cities and universities, it's quite low, I imagine, from what their number of potential insureds or the total insureds is. And so I would just like that comparison from Louisville, Cincinnati, Covington of what they were looking at from their start numbers. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Lawless. Thank you. And thank you to Vice Mayor Gordon and everybody that worked so hard on this. the question about somebody claiming to be a domestic partner to gain the system. People can get married to do the same thing. We have, Lexington has been seen as a very progressive, inclusive, diverse city. And that has drawn a lot of business to our community that we would not have otherwise gotten. And when you look at our major employers, other than the urban county government, they have domestic partner benefits and have many for years and years. And the cost is minimal, but the real issue is it's a simple matter of fairness and justice. It's a matter of being a progressive, inclusive, welcoming city. And it's also not just about our employees, but about drawing people to our community because that's the way they envision us. So I hope that this will move quickly forward. I support the motion, and I hope you all do too. Thank you. And once again, Vice Chair Scotchfield, if I can turn the gavel over to you. I'd like to move to amend I'm going to move to amend the proposal that you have put forward and that is to indicate that we would bring this back as you said to this committee with an ordinance but that it not specify at this point the details of the affidavit that we not single out this one aspect of the plan to make a decision on today. So that's the motion. Mr. Chairman, I'm not the parliamentary one, but I believe we have a motion and a second on that. Do we not? I beg your pardon? Okay, I see. Second the motion. Can you repeat the motion? Yes. The motion was, as I understood it, was to bring this back to Council with a draft ordinance, including in the draft ordinance specification of the affidavit and those conditions. And I'm suggesting that we bring it back, but that we don't make today a decision about any of those details. that we not single out that aspect of what we want in the ordinance as already approved by this committee. Thank you. So a motion was made by Council Member Kay, seconded by Council Member Ford. Sorry. My goodness. It's still morning. No, it's not morning. Do we have any discussion? Vice Mayor Gordon. Yes, thank you. So just so I understand, would your motion remove the requirement of an affidavit from the draft ordinance? It would not remove it, but it would not give it special preference, which is what I believe the proposal, your motion, would give it. What is the special preference? That we would have decided today as a committee to have the affidavit and the conditions. We haven't decided anything. My motion is just to bring back a draft ordinance for discussion. If that's the full motion, then I misunderstood, and I would withdraw my amendment. That was specifically what I said, is to bring back the draft ordinance, and it was in answer to Council Member Meyer's question of whether these are the final decisions, and I said no, this would be to come back for full discussion, and including the idea of an affidavit and the proof of two of the following, and then we can tear it apart. This is a draft that would come back. Okay, so is it fair to say that the simplified motion is simply to bring it back to this committee, this issue with a draft ordinance for further discussion? That is exactly, I think, what we passed. with the detail of this in there so that we can change it or not. Yeah. Then I have no objection. I would withdraw my amendment. Withdrawals will. All right. I will go ahead and turn it back over to you. Thank you. Then we'll continue. I still have people listed. Council Member Myers. I'm going to pass. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just urge the committee to allow us to bring back a draft ordinance. I do recognize and respect all the concern about the finer details that will definitely have implications on the final vote to be taken if this goes forward. But as I sit here today, I think it basically boils down to me that in comparative to a global work environment, we don't offer what others have offered. And I know there will be cost implications, but this is not the Budget and Finance Committee. That will meet at one. And we should take those considerations into account. But this is simply for me whether or not we want to be competitive, whether or not we want to be fair, and whether or not we want to move this forward. So I'll support the motion. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Councilmember Clark. Thank you, Chair. Am I correct in saying that this is probably not part of the does not relate to the motion necessarily, but am I correct in saying that we're going to simply add a category to the kind of benefits that we're offering? I think now we offer married with a spouse, single with a child, married as a family. Is that correct so far? And so we're adding basically unmarried with a beneficiary. A partner. Is that another category? We have either law or HR respond after they caucus. That's a great question. Thank you. That's the first time anybody has ever said that to me. You know, I think we're going to end up having to add a different category because of, depending on whether we have an affidavit for that. One thing that hasn't been said about the affidavits for the other roles, when you do fill out an enrollment application, there is a statement on there that misrepresentation on that enrollment application constitutes basically insurance fraud. So in a way, you are making an affidavit when you fill out the simple enrollment form for a spouse, child, or whatever. There are other components that make it more complicated with the qualified adult. It's not just a child or not just a spouse, but there's other criteria. So I think other entities have used a separate affidavit for that in order to make sure that that's kind of clear. Beyond the affidavit, though, we're still going to have to add a category? I think so. Okay. Thank you. I think we're going to discuss this more, too. And thank you, Chair. Thank you. I see nobody else signed up at the moment. I'll just make a comment before I call the vote, and that is I go back to what I said at the beginning. I will support the motion. I believe that what we're about is something that we should do, that we should have done quite a while ago, and that the basic issue for me is fairness and equity. I want the information about cost. I want the details about the way in which the ordinance will be written, but I believe this is something that deserves full support from Council, and I hope that we'll be moving this forward at the end of the next meeting. So if there's no further comment, all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Thank you very much. Thank all of you for all the work you've done so far, and we look forward to being back next month on this. Thank you. Next item on the agenda is the building security. John, Sheed, and or David. Welcome. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Chair's request, we're here today to provide a starting point of discussions about facility security and welcome any current or future items that need to be considered, requested, and put on the agenda. What we wanted to do was in the next slide, please, just having a very brief presentation. The point of focus is going to be on four different areas. One would be they give everybody a snapshot of the current security services overview, dealing with staffing level, as well as give everyone an idea of above and beyond what is typically considered to be security activities, what other activities our group is involved with. Second one would be past initiatives, just giving some of the new members an idea of what has been looked at, at least for the past four years, and what has been implemented and what has not been. The next one would be just kind of overview of some of the items and issues we're currently looking into, and decisions will be made in conjunction with discussions with this committee in regard to which one of those initiatives we would like to move forward with. And the last one, obviously, would be just kind of give everybody a snapshot of what are the future plans for the security section will be. There are a lot of information out here. I'm not going to go through a lot of these, but just to give you rough ideas, the entire staff at Securities consists of 14 full-time and one part-time staffing. What we do, we provide 24-7 services at the government center. At the Phoenix, we provide an average of 10 to 12 hours of services Monday through Friday, and if it's needed, on special cases. Security is a primary point of contact in terms of coordinating all the emergency evacuations for a variety of reasons. They're also responsible for anything related to access control. Anything in regard to all the buildings that we own, any of them that have actually an electronic access control or any other kind of control system. They issue the cards to employees. They badge visitors as they come in. I think the numbers, based on what we've looked at the last few months, we average about 3,000 badges issues to visitors that are here for a variety of reasons. Also, the security is involved in initiating and issuing parking access to the Phoenix lot as well as the government center structure. The same situation, a patrol, we provide on a second and third shift patrol services to 20 to 25 buildings. On a second shift, that's once during that shift. On a third shift, we provide two patrol systems. And part of the standard operating procedure is for them to check the perimeter, check all the doors, making sure there's nothing left unlocked, and if there are any other issues, they would report that. They also monitor at 24-7 up to 140 different camera locations, kind of keeping an eye on everything the best we can, make sure we're not going to have any issues. I also provide first aid as needed. Also, as you all probably are aware by now, we provide security at all council sessions being held here on the second floor. And one other thing that David Pugh, the manager of the security section, provides as an assistant to me in regard to security issues, We're continuously evaluating and taking a look at what areas we need to improve on, what are some of the improvements and changes that needs to be done operationally or staffing-wide. So that's an ongoing process. Next slide, please. Past initiatives. Four years ago when I joined a city that had just started looking into introduction metal detectors into primarily for the government center as well as the Phoenix building, Two metal detectors were purchased for each building. At that time, we provided some numbers in regard to additional staffings needed. We reached out and talked to some peer groups in terms of what are the staffing requirements that they have. It was highly recommended to us that at least have one armed staff member or guard at each station, simply because of the lack of available resources within the current group. What we did was we reached out to the different groups that could provide those. Specifically in this case was the sheriff's office. They were more than glad to provide those services. The cost four years ago was estimated at $250,000 to $275,000 to provide guards at these two locations. We also look at, as needed basis, what would be some other sources in terms of increasing number of hours that we would have available. We get time-to-time requests for additional security at different events and buildings. And so we also looked at, if you've got contractors out there, we knew that University of Kentucky utilizes two or three contracts in terms of additional security to their police system they've got. Another thing that we started implementing and still on an ongoing basis, installation of additional cameras and as well as installation of additional card readers and electronic access devices. One other issue that we run into was looking at security at all of the buildings and facilities. We noticed there were a lot of different systems that have been used in the past, different contractors, different systems and so forth. We established what we call a non-proprietary system requirement and have contractors on, price contract that we utilize for replacing, updating, and installation of new systems out there. Next slide, please. What are we looking at right now is, and we had asked police department, and a few weeks ago they came in and took a look at specifically with this building, which is, in my opinion, is the primary one on the list, and they're in the process of working out a detail and their findings to us in regard to if there are any gaps or any improvements that they see needs to be provided. We also internally are looking at primarily this building at this point as well as Phoenix, trying to assess the risk exposure and trying to identify what might be some opportunities to increase our control on who's getting to what areas and so forth. One thing we're looking at currently is in the first floor of this building, as well as the fifth floor. I feel like those two were very good candidates to kind of try to take a look and establish if there are any additional security measures needed to be put in place. Next three slides will show you some of the items that we look at specifically in regard to the fifth floor. you got three sets of stairs as well as three elevators. So the idea was trying to see what might be some cost associated and options in regard to minimizing unauthorized access into that area. Cost at this point, we're still waiting on one last proposal from DC Elevator, but a couple of the things that we're looking at between the elevators as well as the stairwells, probably looking at about 17 and a half would be potential costs. But we should provide you all with the final anticipated costs associated with this project. On that note, I would be glad to answer any questions. As I mentioned, this was a very brief presentation, sort of a kickoff and starting point on future discussions in regards to security. All right. Councilmember Kay stepped out, so I've taken on the chair duties for right now. I'll recognize Councilmember Beard. Thank you. Once upon a time, we had an off-duty policeman here in this room for meetings of the council anyway. Is that not correct? I'll ask you. You're one of the old heads around here. Well, I think we still do always have a person in the council chamber, correct? Yes. That's in addition to our security staff here. Sits on the back row, as I remember. Sometimes. Yeah, most of them. Well, I mean, the point I'm going to make is if somebody wanted to start wiping them out, he would be the first to go. So, you know, we've made it now for I don't know how many years without any incident whatsoever. Are we tilting at windmills? Not really. and this line of business, especially with all these recent issues that's ongoing in the last few years, I believe it's always prudent to do due diligence in reviewing the current policies, procedures, and what we're providing and identifying additional opportunities to improve your level of services, security being one of them. You know, banks at one time had armed guards in their lobbies, and they found out they were killing more customers than they were bank robbers. And so that doesn't happen anymore. And you may see it sometimes in a movie or a TV show, but it actually does not happen. I agree. I don't know. I just think we're overkilling the Department of Expression. but it you know we'll sit up and look up and say well look at all the great work we did well I mean for the last 50 years we've been in the same situation and look what a great job they did each year so I don't I don't favor this at all and we favor the expense of it and there are so many holes if somebody really who wanted to work us over, all we had to do is stand outside the garage door and pop every car that comes out until they start bumping into each other and such. So, I mean, there are ways that a person who really wants to hurt the council or hurt the mayor, all they've got to do is, well, I mean, the mayor, Lord, He's will-o'-the-wisp. He's around from 15 different places every day, and it's right there that he's going to cut a ribbon or do whatever, and all they have to do is go find him there, and without any help whatsoever, he's gone. That's a valid point. Anyway, that's all the news that's fit to print. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much, Tom Sheet. I appreciate the beginnings of this being brought to us. And as you know, this was discussed at length in a council committee of the whole where the entire council asked for this issue to be pursued and to get information about what we might do. And I just wanted to say that I was here in the early 2000s when someone did bring a handgun into the government building. And we were in a council work session, and this person was loose in the building, so to speak, with a weapon. And anyone here back then remembers it because the police got our SWAT team out, and they got the council out of here, and we got sequestered in a room until they could find the person with the handgun. And this was a person who was looking for someone. And I am not a person who ever feels afraid. I'm just not a fearful person. But I will say that day when I knew there was someone in the building looking for someone and they did have a weapon, it was a little bit disturbing. So what I want to say in relation to that is that I think our front door is the main culprit. If you go to almost any government building across this country, they have security at the front door that will screen you for a weapon. I mean, I understand the folks who want something on the fifth floor, but the fifth floor, to me, ignores the entire building, and we want all of our employees to feel safe. And that's where I'm coming from with my comments, is I think if we can do something to let people know we are a secure facility, and so when you come in here you can be relatively assured that no one will have a weapon, I think that is high priority. and I just wanted to say that publicly because it's not only for our employees it's for all the public, members of the public who come in here so it would only take one incident one incident and we would all be saying why didn't we do something before and I personally don't want to be in that position where I'm embarrassed or disturbed that we didn't do something to prevent the one time, which has happened in many cities, that was devastating. So I really am hopeful that in your research and coming back to us, you can help us understand what we can do to better secure our buildings so that the public can feel comfortable coming and going and that our employees can be comfortable being here. And that doesn't cost a huge fortune. It's a big task to do that, I know. But that is just some of my feelings, and I thank you for getting started on this. Thank you. Council Member Scotchfield. Thank you, Chair. I'm kind of repeating some of what Vice Mayor Gordon has said, But I think my biggest concern is we're not protecting our own employees. And, you know, if we protect the front door, we protect the fifth floor. Ooh, that was good. But I think it's a bigger issue than just the fifth floor. I think, you know, you go into federal courthouses. You go into state courthouses. You go into any place where the public is invited in, the protection of the people inside the building is key. and it should not be just a certain floor. And so I think I'd like to see a broader view of how to protect the people in the building. Just making a point of clarification, the fifth floor was selected as an example for us to identify some of the weaknesses and so forth. We also have been looking at the first floor for a while now. When you go to any of the two courthouses a block away from us, you got what they call a basic security level for everybody at the point of entry into the building. But also, if you try to have access to upper floors, especially where you got the judges' chambers and so forth, there's actually another elevated level of security that's in place. So as we were talking about, generally you've got to identify what is the basic level you need to have at the point of entry, but also identify if you've got a bridge at that level, then what are your secondary level and the areas where you feel like there might be a higher risk of exposure. And I think there are definite ways to do it. I mean, I worked in the courthouse before it was the new courthouse. And, you know, we could have defendants, people walk in at any point in time. Unfortunately, we didn't ever have an issue that put the judge that I worked for or our staff in harm, but it just takes one time. Oh, yes. And I guess we need to look forward and try to make sure that we protect our own employees. I agree. Thank you. Council Member Clark. Thank you, Chair. I, too, will be repeating what previous comments have been made. And frankly, I feel almost resentment that we have to think about this. I just think, why do we have to do this? Why do we have to be part of a society that we fear for our own lives and that of others? But I'm afraid we're going to have to. I think we're to the point, there are too many examples that have shown us that we're really not safe. And I think we start in the first floor. This conversation came up primarily because of a council concerned about their own security in the fifth floor. That's kind of where it started. But I think we all began to agree that it's not the fifth floor that is the concern. It's the people who can get into this building and go just about anywhere. So I think we are going to have to do something, and primarily the first thing we have to do is assure ourselves that people are not coming into this building with a weapon of any kind, which means first floor, not only the main lobby entrance, but any entrance. Even though we have cards that allow us into these other entrances, anybody could stand there and walk in with us. And so if they do that, not very many of us would say, I'm sorry, you can't come in with me. We would say, oh, sure. And so I'm afraid we're going to have to have some kind of metal defectors at any place at the entrance to this building. I hate to say that, but I know it's going to be expensive. But I think we have to do it. And I'm simply adding to what's already been said. but I unfortunately feel strongly about it. Thank you. Thank you, M. Sheeden. Thank you, Chair. Could I add one more thing quickly? This is a question. We do have metal detectors, but I have never seen anybody walk through it. Currently it's installed right behind a security station. I see it. Visitors to the mayor's office, they've been going through there. Okay. employees' body. I've been guilty of walking around it, not wanting to set it off, but that's one of the discussions that we've been having is what would be the primary location should be decided as part of this change to relocate that to a primary upfront area. But also the biggest challenge right now is just because of the building itself and how it's laid out and how people come and go, So unless you create a primary and really only one point of entry and exit for the building, anything else you do is going to be futile. Unfortunately, I think you're right. But people coming into the front door, I think anybody coming in the front door has to go through a metal detector, regardless of who they are. Sure. Okay. Thank you. And thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to start by saying that I agree 100% with what the Vice Mayor said. I would take it a step further, though, and just quickly, I have on my calendar today a note to me that was put on my calendar several months ago to go back down and file the paperwork to make sure that a certain person doesn't come back into our building and have free access. And the reason for that is because they've threatened myself and people in my office, and they also came to a neighborhood meeting. Their previous mayor was having a mayor's night out. Fortunately, we had plainclothes officers there because he was there, and he went into a separate neighborhood association meeting and started wreaking havoc, and he was escorted off the property. And once that happened, he's blamed actually my previous couple of council aides before. And so when we talk about security, I believe we need to have secure at all doors first. And all of us here in this room will know and attest to the fact that some days you come in and that back garage door is open, and then the back door into the building is propped open. So anybody at any time can walk in that back door in the building, and no one has any idea who they are or why they're here or what they're doing. But I would say I'd go further than the vice mayor did because when we talk about the fifth floor, if you look at HR, HR is locked out. You can't get in there unless someone from the inside lets you in, or you work in that department and you have the code to get in that door. There's a reason, because usually when an employee gets upset, they go off on the people in HR. When citizens get upset, they're going to go off on either the mayor or his staff, her staff, or the council members. If they come to the fifth floor because they're upset with a council member or something that the council voted on, more than likely we won't be there. It will be our staff that's there. So I don't see the need for extra security on that fifth floor to protect me. as much as it is to protect that 40-hour employee that I have that represents me in the 8th District there, because that's who more than likely is going to bear the brunt of this thing. I will tell you that in the past, there's a button up there somewhere on that floor. Currently, we don't even have anybody anywhere close to that button, so it couldn't be hit in the first place. But we've pushed that button. When I was on staff for three years in the council office, we pushed that button two different times to see what would happen. and about 15 minutes later, a police officer, one police officer, casually walked off the elevator to see what was going on. So they're not safe up there. We've got to do some things to change that. I think that we need to have the magnetometer at the front door, that everybody who comes in this building needs to go through that. And there's other things that we can do, but I think this is something we have to look at. I can tell you I grew up in Evansville, Indiana. There was a mayor who served several terms, was very popular, retired, went on with life. A few years after he retired, there was a lady who had some mental health issues. Her home was condemned, and she was evicted from her home. She didn't know who the new mayor was, so she went to the old mayor's house, rung his doorbell, and when he opened the door, she shot and killed him. We've been in session here before when in St. Louis, in Kirkwood, Missouri, there was a person that would come down weekly and exchange words with the mayor and the council. upset about different business dealings. One day he came in, shot five people. I think four of them died. We can go to Congress. There was a time a couple years ago in Congress where a person latched on next to a congressman that they were good friends with. Everybody knew this person. So instead of having to go through security with everybody else, he went around security with the congressman and walked in and shot and killed somebody. So it just goes back to what everybody said. If that happens, I don't want to have to live the rest of my life knowing that somebody in this building, whether it's on the fifth floor or any other floor, was hurt or killed and their family members have lost them because we didn't do the very basic of securing this building when almost any other probably municipally-owned building in this country has more security than we do. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I stand in support with the rest of the council members and with John Sheed and Commissioner Reed as we address this issue. I've thought about this, Mr. Chair, and I want to pose this question to the committee, and if CAO Hamilton is still here, the lawyers have left. As we continue to debate this, if we can seek an opinion as to whether or not, I don't feel it's appropriate for us to display the strategies and efforts that we're going to come with here soon, I hope, to amp up and improve our security. I know you can only go into closed session, I think, for personnel and litigation, but are there ways that this body, this committee, and this council can work with the administration and safeguard our deliberations? It's kind of, Mr. Chair, what I was thinking about. It would defeat the purpose if we lay out what our weaknesses are and how we want to strengthen those to allow somebody to infiltrate and expose those. So if we could just keep that in mind as we move forward, that would be very helpful. Thank you. Thank you. So this is really a question for law and whether we can go into closed session on that kind of an issue, and we'll seek that opinion. I think so, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Councilmember Beard. Thank you, Chair. I just looked this up on Google so that everybody would know what it says. In 2012, people can now openly carry a firearm in any city-owned facility in Kentucky, including libraries, parks, the zoo, city council chambers, and city hall, thanks to a revision made to state law. Now, with what we're dealing with right now, this is a wrinkle from left field that, you know, I don't know how we're going to handle that part of it, to tell you the truth. I mean, when they hit the front door, they probably look 100% fine. If they're sitting up here and something happens that they don't like, you know, it could change, obviously. I think law has got to look at that and see just exactly where we are before we start charging out here and spending money. I believe Commissioner Graham and her staff are currently reviewing that and trying to come up with a couple of recommendations for us, and that's definitely a very good point. But they're looking into it as we speak. I think one of the things is that you can openly carry, but you can't concealed carry, which doesn't make any sense to me either, but that's what it is. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Lawless. I'm sorry. I'm a little bit taken aback. I think that I'm not going to comment right now, I think. Okay. I see no other council members signed up at this time. Thank you for the presentation. I guess there's a couple things to follow up on in terms of how we can proceed. Thank you very much. Thank you. It will bring us to the last item on our agenda, which is the items pending before the committee. Can we just go down the list and ask the people who have their names next to them where we stand, starting with the relationship with the Bluegrass Ad, Council Member Myers? Thank you, Mr. Chair. We've had one meeting with them, I think in that meeting, and they were putting together some information, and we will have a subsequent meeting and then be ready to bring that forward. So that needs to stay on our pending? Yes, sir. But not scheduled? Correct. Underwriting, sponsoring facilities, parks, vice mayor? I think that's still in the works, is it? I believe it is. Is there any, but it's not presently scheduled, or is it? I think November. Scheduled for November? I believe so. Do you remind me? I think that's correct. Okay. Human resources, moving human resources, status of that? We heard that in one meeting already, and there were no decisions, but I think that it was supposed to come back to us with some of the technicalities about what it would take to do that. Okay, so that needs to stay on the list. Council Member Clark? Could we add to that particular discussion the possibility of making human resources a separate department? So basically broaden the scope and say look at the appropriate place for? Okay. Correct. Thank you. The usage agreement. That's off. Okay. Okay. Domestic partner benefits, we know it's coming back next month. Building security, we'll keep it on the list but not schedule it at the moment until we give them a chance to do more work. Grant review process, but not scheduled immediately. Okay, so keep it on the list. Okay. Unless there's any other business, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Second. Motion to adjourn and seconded. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We stand adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.