Ripon City Council members are eligible for the same benefits as city employees.

It’s the same health and welfare plan for administrative staff and non-represented police department employees approved at last month’s meeting and effective January.

City Administrator Kevin Werner indicated that the rates increased in cost by 4.9 percent this year.

“The only benefit changing is dental,” he noted at the Oct. 10 meeting.

The City currently has Assurant Dental. But Werner said that once the quote came back, Bohannon Insurance agents contacted the other providers. As a result, Premiere Access stepped up with a “significantly lower rate.”

The health packages include Kaiser Healthcare, CSAC Blue Shield Healthcare, American Specialty Health Chiropractic, MES Vision, Sunlife Life Insurance, Sunlife Long Term Disability, and, of course, Premier Access.

Employees under the Blue Shield family coverage will pay $155.69 a month while those under the Kaiser family coverage will fork out $121.34 a month beginning in 2018.

The City was praised for its efforts of “being efficient and looking for ways to save money,” according to Vice Mayor Michael Restuccia.

This includes the City changing from Blue Shield Gold Plan to the Silver Plan in 2013, in turn, providing a significant premium savings although with a higher deductible and co-insurance requirement – the City agreed to reimburse employees 100 percent of the deductible cost and co-insurance cost buy only after they pay the first $2,000 of the co-insurance, the staff report said.

The projected cost including deductible reimbursement is about $1.4 million from the 2017-18 budget.