After the Geauga Park District terminated its contract with the Geauga County Auditor’s Office June 28, the GPD Board of Commissioners addressed employee healthcare and information technology issues during their public meeting July 6.
After the Geauga Park District terminated its contract with the Geauga County Auditor’s Office June 28, the GPD Board of Commissioners addressed employee healthcare and information technology issues during their public meeting July 6.
The moment park commissioners voted to sever fiscal ties with the county, Auditor Chuck Walder could no longer pay for employees’ health insurance and the county could no longer provide IT services to the district.
As a result, employee emails have been down and the GPD posted the following message on their website:
“Important: If you applied for a permit before July 1 but did not receive confirmation that it was successfully received, please resend it as soon as possible to geaugaparkdistrict@gmail.com, as we have been unable to receive emails sent to our regular email addresses.
“Geauga Park District is experiencing a temporary phone, email and internet interruption due to unforeseen circumstances. For any program or reservation assistance, please call 440-226-4695 or 440-226-4636 between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. or send an email to geaugaparkdistrict@gmail.com.”
The GPD board approved a “then-and-now” resolution Monday to pay Geauga County Commissioners $53,992 for coverage of district employees healthcare insurance, as presented by Executive Director John Oros, who said the coverage would continue through the County Employee Benefits Consortium of Ohio.
More information would be available at the July 16 CEBCO board of directors meeting, he said.
“There will not be a lapse in our coverage,” he said, adding the district is planning to set up as an independent group in the consortium.
A staff member said insurance bids are being sought from two other insurance agencies and quotes may come in this week.
Walder said via phone interview Monday afternoon the payment from the park board was to reimburse a loan from the Geauga County Commissioners, who agreed June 29 to pay for district health insurance through June.
Up until June 28, the park board was on the county’s policy, so the payment would come out of the park board’s coffers and be paid every month by the auditor, he said.
Since the county and park district are now separate entities, Walder said he will not be handling park district funds.
“I have not been asked to do any magic with money,” he said. “We offered all the employees COBRA. I have no insight into July.”
The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 allows workers and their qualified dependents the right to continue their employer-sponsored health insurance for a short period of time if that insurance would stop due to termination of employment, reduction in hours or changes within their immediate family, according to the COBRA Insurance website.
“When you terminate an employee, you must put them on COBRA. They have to pay their portion of it,” said Commissioner Pat Preston. “(COBRA) is totally run by the government for this purpose.”
Termination of employees was not a topic of discussion during the GPD commissioners’ meeting.
In other business, an amendment to the 2021 budget included a supplemental appropriation of $65,000 for information technology software and hardware. The cost represents an increase in the district’s IT budget of $188,996.
Previously, the county provided IT for the GPD at no cost to the district.
GPD Commissioner Bill Dieterle noted the additional amount for IT services was not projected when the budget was established before the board voted to terminate the district’s contract with the county.
Resident Barb Partington asked for more specific information on the proposed purchase.
Oros said it includes fiber networking by third-party contractors Black Box Network Services and Windstream.
“This is the budget until the end of the year,” he said.
Walder later said he would be surprised if that is the last supplemental appropriation park commissioners approve this year because setting up accounting systems for a multi-million-dollar program would require a lot of extra hours.
Park commissioners also voted against adding the federal holiday Juneteenth as a holiday for district employees. Oros said each of the district’s full-time employees has 80 hours of holiday time they can use as days off with pay, so, for instance, an employee can work on Presidents’ Day and take the day after Thanksgiving off.
Shortly after the monthly meeting was convened, Oros announced the board was going into executive session and the public was excused.
