Thursday, July 17, 2008

One good way to show we're serious

A New York town council is blazing a trail toward fiscal sanity by eliminating opulent health insurance benefits for part-time elected officials and government workers.

"The new policy applies to any part-time worker who was elected or appointed after Jan. 1 of this year. The three board members elected in November declined the town's medical coverage, and current part-time town employees with health coverage will keep it, board member David Gelfarb said.

Dropping health insurance for future part-time employees was an essential part of the new personnel policy, he explained.

"It was a significant aspect of it because of its tremendous cost component," he said. "The health benefits are approximately 13 or 14 percent of the town's budget. There is a need to match the legitimate expectations of employees with the taxpayer concerns with ever-increasing property taxes."

The state of Kentucky would do very well to follow their example. It's just too bad meaningful reform like this wasn't part of last month's special session.

1 comment:

Lady Cincinnatus said...

It's pretty scary when Kentucky should be acting like New York and isn't.