Brookshire renews Texas Health Pool coverage and moves voluntary benefits into the pool

City staff recommended and the Brookshire City Council voted on June 4 to renew the city’s base health coverage through the Texas Health Pool and to consolidate voluntary ancillary products into the pool.

Payroll and HR presenter Miss Watts (S3) told the council that Brookshire faces roughly a 15% increase from the pool for the coming plan year and that the market standard increase cited at an expo was closer to 30%. She proposed moving voluntary ancillary products currently provided by American Fidelity into the Texas Health Pool and reallocating a cited average shortfall of about $110,700 to help offset the pool increase. "It's going to be a 15% increase for the health pool," Watts said, and she outlined options for a high-plan and a low-plan for voluntary coverages and a new Flexible Spending Account (FSA) card setup through the pool.

Watts recommended also moving the $500 flexible-spending contribution into the pool and offering employees the ability to contribute additional funds to reach higher FSA balances; she said dental and vision offerings would remain unchanged. She noted the city provides full coverage for employees and that the change aims to make family coverage more affordable by shifting some voluntary costs from employer-paid to employee-paid options for voluntary products.

Council discussed timing and the need to select the voluntary-products option at the meeting so insurers could prepare proposals; one council member moved to approve renewal with Option 1 (the high voluntary plan) as presented and the council recorded an affirmative vote. Staff said open enrollment begins July 1 and that final budget figures will depend on employee selections during enrollment.

What’s next: Staff will finalize plan documents, proceed with open enrollment and return with finalized numbers after employee elections are known.