Butler County employee says co-workers are not being poached — they are leaving

“I have to say that I don’t believe we’re necessarily being poached, I believe that employees are actively seeking opportunities to improve our quality of life,” Hammons said. “I’m just asking today for a commitment from you guys to hear those of us who are taxpayers, community members, residents and also employees.”

In the article entitled “Butler County commissioners set priorities, conduct ‘eulogy’ session” the commissioners identified employee retention as a huge issue.

Commissioner Cindy Carpenter told the Journal-News “I wasn’t happy to hear her statement that employees are actively seeking other positions, I have no reason not to believe her, but I hate to hear that.”

Hammons said some employees “feel as if they’re not being heard when they’re expressing their voices and opinion.” She suggested since the county is in the market for a new healthcare provider, they can accomplish two objectives, enhance county benefits to improve retention and be responsive to citizens’ needs, since many employees are residents

It is the commissioners practice not to address comments made during the citizen engagement portion of their meetings.

When they learned Humana would no longer be serving the commercial market, the county began shopping for new insurance in May. Hammons told the Journal-News employees want to play an active role in the search for new insurance and benefits included in the coverage.

County Administrator Judi Boyko told the Journal-News they did survey employees.

“We did engage through the survey trying to understand what their needs were and to better provide what the employees really want, with what we can afford,” Boyko said.

Commissioner Don Dixon told the Journal-News in the last few years the employees’ contribution hasn’t increased and the benefits have been good. He said while they haven’t yet received proposals from their insurance broker, they’ll follow their normal procedure.

“We’ll look at all that stuff and compare it to what we had, and as always we listen to what employees say and also what our taxpayers can afford,” Dixon said. “In my opinion we’ve always had a more than competitive healthcare package.”

The county’s health insurance cost for this year is $20.3 million. Acknowledging the uncertainty of future COVID-19 health impacts, the commissioners agreed to hire Humana in 2021, because the provider offered a two-year rate lock and maximum increase up to 6% for the third year for health insurance coverage.

The commissioners have absorbed the rate increases for their employees several times.

“I think this commission should be recognized for the way that we have held down health costs to our employees, contrary to what the outside industry has done,” Commissioner T.C. Rogers said. “Our health increases have been minimal compared to four or five times higher in other industries.”

Hammons told the Journal-News health insurance isn’t the only issue.

“The other counties offer higher pay, more comprehensive benefits packages, which increases our happiness and quality of life.”

The BCCS union ratified a new three-year contract with the county in January that is about $506,000 more than the previous deal. During the negotiations, the county did a salary compensation survey and found Butler was on the lower end. The new deal included a $1.50 per-hour pay bump, minimum and maximum wage range adjustments and merit raises in years two and three of the contract.

The commissioners have also spent more than $1 million in the past year-and-a-half doling out raises to non-union employees under their direct control to boost employee retention.

“We’ve had a several million dollar increase in wages over the last year, just trying to keep up with the market,” Dixon said. “But in today’s world with the COVID and people working from home and when they get different opportunities they go for different reasons. It is what it is, we can only afford to pay so much.”

Boyko said there are definitely external factors impacting their workforce, but not necessarily the ones Hammons described.

“I think she’s fairly accurate, nobody wants to continue to use COVID as an excuse but COVID reinvented the workforce to some extent and how organizations can function.” Boyko said. “Remote is very, very attractive to the workforce. County government the majority of the aspects of it, because it is so service delivery, it behooves us to have people present to serve.”