Committee approves Williamson County risk-management and benefits budgets across funds

A Williamson County committee approved several risk-management and employee-benefits budgets at a regularly scheduled meeting, adopting operating allocations for the general, solid waste and highway funds.

Phoebe, the staff member who presented the budgets, said the budget committee issued guidance calling for a 4% increase in salaries and a 5% reduction in operations. "The guidelines again from the budget committee were 5% increase or sorry 4% increase for salaries, 5% decrease for operations," Phoebe said, noting the risk-management operations total is $341,493 and that personnel lines rose roughly 4% while operations were reduced about 9.5% to meet targets.

The committee approved the operating budget for risk management, then considered liability insurance charges coded to major category 58400. Phoebe explained that the 58400 liability costs are split across three funds; the general-fund portion showed a roughly 6% operations reduction after last year’s competitive bids. The solid waste fund’s liability package — covering vehicle and building insurance and workers’ compensation — was presented at $870,500, a roughly 2% increase driven primarily by bid pricing and variable workers’ compensation claims. The highway fund liability entry showed an 11.9% reduction for that fund, with a total budget request of $1,364,534.

On employee benefits, Phoebe reviewed department-level and fund-level totals: the benefits department operating budget was presented as $663,311; solid-waste employee benefits were listed as $92,445, and staff reported general-fund benefits and highway-fund benefits totals to the committee for approval. Phoebe noted an actuarial rate change from Tennessee Consolidated Retirement raised the retirement contribution rate compared with the prior year, contributing to part of the benefits increase.

Each of the budget motions was called and recorded as approved by the committee. The meeting then moved to other business, where staff brought forward a recommendation for a new flexible spending account administrator and discussed upcoming procurements and renewals.