Hill County Commission votes down employee insurance proposal

The Hill County Commission voted 2-0 Thursday during its weekly business meeting to accept MACo’s new insurance rates and keep the contribution percentages of Hill County and its employees the same as last year.

The original proposal would have shifted the amounts paid for health insurance if the county employee also insured a spouse, children or family, with the employee paying an increased amount and the county paying less. The idea was proposed as a way to reduce property tax rates in the county.

A document provided by the Hill County Clerk and Recorder’s Office showed a taxpayer who owns a home with a market value of $200,000 would see savings of $7.09 per year.

Hill County Commissioner Diane McLean talked during the meeting about the response she received from the public and county employees.

She also offered criticism of the Havre Daily News’ coverage of the issue, firstly that the Havre Daily used the incorrect terminology when discussing the proposal itself.

“Havre Daily News, I’m gonna call you out first,” she said, “This is not a ‘policy change,’ this is a budgetary line item decision.”

McLean also raised questions about the percentage increase to employee contributions printed by the paper.

“395 percent increase, really? What was the source of that percentage? ... I am a math teacher, I have a math background, did you check the math before you printed those percentages in your paper?” McLean said.

The percentages used in the article were taken from a spreadsheet provided to the Havre Daily News from the County Clerk and Recorder’s Office.

Another criticism McLean had was with the interpretation that she was skeptical of the idea that county employees might quit their jobs as a result of the proposed changes.

“Part of your article stated that ‘McLean doubts the increase will cause employees to leave,’ I do not recall saying that,” she said, “I did state that there have been multiple employees leave in the three plus some years I have sat in this chair for many many reasons.”

She said she has since been sent false accusations over social media.

“I have been accused of lying to the newspaper, I have a quote in an email that states that I called our Havre employees ‘disrespectful little s***** employees’ I would like to know what employee I called out in that manner,” she said.

McLean said she has faced a number of less specific false allegations as well.

“I have accused of being ignorant of what actually happened with these insurance premiums and not doing any homework in this issue, I have been accused of no consideration given to employee costs,” she said.

She also said criticism that she is making excuses is false.

She said the responses she’s received from the public, and Hill County employees have been largely anonymous and vitriolic.

“I have a public phone number I have received zero phone calls from employees, they have all hid behind their letter or their email,” she said, “I appreciate your input, we have considered your input. I feel that the mistrust, the accusations, the vitriol, the hatred, the misinformation you social justice warriors out there, many of you out on Facebook, also know me by first name, you could have well have called my house and asked for clarification, in fact you did not.”

McLean said there have been a few positive responses. She said there have been taxpayers who thanked her for trying to fight for them, but the responses she’s received have affected how she feels about her position.

“I had two phone calls to my house from taxpayers who graciously, kindly and respectfully shared with me their input, and some of the department heads I will say have responded to this very respectfully,” McLean said, “But I’m gonna tell you what, sitting in this chair has a whole different feeling going forward.”

“Trust me, this changes how I do view the people that I work with, the employees that work for Hill County,” she added.

She said this incident has changed things for her, and incidents like this could affect future elected officials.

“We currently have an open elected position in Hill County,” McLean said, “Dec. 31, our superintendent of schools will be leaving from this county, will someone step in and run for that position? As we go forward and talk about employees leaving, what if your elected officials positions also cannot be filled? And partially that is because of this kind of incident.”

She said the process of considering the changes to county and employee shares of health insurance costs has been completely transparent with nine days for taxpayers and employees to respond to it, and that there is no political agenda on her part.

The commission had noticed the proposal as “Insurance” on its Tuesday, April 21, business meeting agenda and planned to vote on it Thursday, April 23.

The board tabled the vote at that meeting until Thursday of this week.

“This is knockdown drag out, bring it to the street and bloody. How much more open and transparent do you want it?” McLean said.

She said this incident would affect how she voted on the proposal.

“Understand that so much misinformation has been shared, I cannot second this motion, I’m not sure that I can vote on this motion,” she said.

Hill County Commissioner Mike Wendland said the other commissioners had seen similar vitriol directed at the commission as a whole, but said many of the responses he read were at least not anonymous.

“I do also appreciate all the letters that we got, at least they were signed,” Wendland said, “Sometimes we get comments and letters to the commission that aren’t signed, and that’s pretty hard to take also.”

Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson said he’d read a number of letters about the insurance issue and he drawn two conclusions from reading all of them.

“Two things stood out in the letters and the emails besides the insurance votes. People are not satisfied with the pay scale for county employees, the second one is they want more input into the budget process,” Peterson said.

In response to the first issue, he said, he would put another item on the commission’s agenda.

“What I’m going to do is at the next business meeting put on the agenda a discussion to start the process of putting a mill request on the ballot in November, that mill request has to be done Aug. 1,” he said.

He said such a request is a necessary step, and that he wants the public to participate in discussing the issue.

“I think it’s long been needed,” he said, “If you look at our history, we’ve lost about $1.45 million in oil and gas revenue to the county. The departments within the county have found a way to absorb that loss and be very efficient in their operation, we can’t continue that. We’re gonna have to start cutting people, we’re going to have to start cutting the improvements and maintenance if we’re going to continue down this road. So, I think it’s time that we go to the public and ask permission to raise their taxes for county government.”

Peterson said the county put a similar mill request on the ballot in the past when the jail was paid off and they wanted to keep the levee in place but instead use it for infrastructure spending. He said even though this would not have raised the tax rate on Hill County residents it was perceived as an increase and was voted down because of it. He said the commission will make an effort to be more communicative in the future.

“I approached the radio station, I approached the Havre Daily News and I said we were in the process of doing this we need to get this information out to the public, neither one of those ever responded to me,” he said, “… We did not do a very good job of getting that information out, and that is why I’m asking for the public to be involved now.”

Public Health Director Kim Larson suggested that the county make more of an effort to inform the public of what the various departments do for the residents of Hill County.

“I would suggest a very in-depth campaign or media thing that is set up for the county to tell the taxpayers what this money is doing and what everyone who works for the county does for everyone in the county,” she said, “I think there’s a lot of unknown as to what every department does, mine included, and it’s hard to get it out to the public and I think that is where we should start.”

Larson also suggested that the county take steps to keep the public more appraised of what is being done on a weekly basis in the future and offered her help in that endeavor.

Peterson also addressed the idea that county employees should have more of a say over the budget.

“I think that would be excellent,” he said.

Peterson said he will be putting together a weekly meeting with the commission, the clerk and recorder and the treasurer as its core, and the public will be “invited, encouraged and almost insisted that they attend,” along with county employees who want more of a voice in the process.

“Was it easy to read some of those letters? No it was not,” he said, “But I looked at those letters and I gleaned out of it what I thought was really important to start with and trust me I will be rereading those letters to see what else people bring up.”

Peterson said he appreciated the sincerity of the responses he read, even though he thinks it was spurred by misinformation.

“There was a tremendous amount of misinformation that cause people to speak from the heart, maybe not always the best, but it still was from the heart,” he said.

Hill County Clerk and Recorder Sue Armstrong suggested the creation of a health committee to assist the commission in make decisions about health insurance related issues in the future.

The commission also voted unanimously to approve a resolution to amend the Hill County General Fund to use funding received through the Department of Justice for a bullet-proof vest partnership program grant for the Hill County Sheriff’s Office.

The commissioners also unanimously voted to approve a contract with county and tribal matching grant COVID-19 application from the Department of Health and Human Services, to receive not more than $40,000 of funding through grant.

“This funding is very specific to behavioral health and supporting that within our community during COVID-19,” Larson said.

She said the health department is looking into increasing access to behavioral health, increasing the understanding of local resources, as well as possibly purchasing PPE for the mental health specialists.

The commssion unanimously voted to approve a road encroachment by Heberly Engineering for burying fiber optic lines down the south side of the Old Havre Highway.

The commission also unanimously approved a new appointment to the Rudyard Water and Sewer District.

Before adjourning the meeting, Mike Wendland thanked those who attended.

“We haven’t seen this much participation in a long time,” he said.