Commission Holds Special Meeting to Discuss City Employee Health Insurance, Comprehensive Master Plan and Proposed Property Tax Rate

by Martha E. Ibarra/LFN

The La Feria City commission called to order a special meeting held on Tuesday, Aug. 30 at 6:30 PM in the City Commission meeting room located at 115 E. Commercial Ave in La Feria.

Mayor Maldonado, after following the usual protocol of a city meeting (invocation, pledge of allegiance, determination of quorum), called the meeting to order.

The first order of business was public comments; Mayor Maldonado opened the floor to the public to come forward and express any general concerns they might have to the commission. The only citizen to speak was Mirta Rodriguez who has been a resident of La Feria for the past 24 years. Rodriguez’s concern was about the recent proposal to increase the city’s tax rate.

“A lot of us are on a fixed income, or we have a lot of children, or we have low income, we can’t afford any more tax heights. I know I am at one of those points where I can’t even send my kids to college because I can’t afford anymore… Please don’t raise the taxes, cause we can’t afford it!” pleaded Rodriguez.

Next, the commission reviewed tabulation of proposals received and considered the appropriate action necessary to award a contract for the city of La Feria Employee Group Health Insurance and to designate an agent for the city of La Feria. At the last city meeting (Aug. 23), Interim City Manager, Esmeralda Sanchez, reviewed and explained the contents of 4 packets presented to the commission by four insurance groups- Allegian, Employee Group Benefits of Texas, TML and Gallagher Benefit Services.

Since this item was tabled at the last meeting, it was brought up for discussion again at this meeting. Sanchez made it clear to the committee that in order to be able to move forward with enrollment and with the proposed budget they had to select a plan as well as an agent. Sanchez reviewed the cost estimates presented by the four insurance carriers and determined that the best insurance carrier to award the contract to would be Allegian.

“Based on the information we received, the most comparable to what we had at the best rate for the city was through Allegian,” said Sanchez to the commission.

She then went on to explain in detail the various cost estimates brought forth by Allegian.

In the absence of Joanie Bianchini, the representative from Allegian, the commission directed their questions regarding coverage to Armando Garcia, a representative from Gallagher Benefit Services. After careful consideration, Commissioner Hoff motioned to remain with the existing plan provided by Allegian- VHL 15820 at $329.29. The motion was supported and passed.

The commission went on to open a public hearing concerning the comprehensive master plan for the city.

At a previous city meeting (Aug. 9) the comprehensive master plan was brought up for discussion and Mr. Chris Stewart came forth and spoke on behalf of his firm, Stewart Planning Consulting LLC.

On Aug. 9, Stewart informed the commission that in order to get more feedback from the residents of La Feria, his firm had created a survey that had been available to the public for sixty days. At that time, SPC had only received thirty-four responses; the commission, not being pleased with the results, discussed ways to get more public feedback. Stewart informed the commission that his firm would leave up the survey for an extended amount of time in order to reach more residents.

When Mayor Maldonado declared the public hearing open, Stewart spoke before the commission once again, “In our last hearing, we had some good discussion about the survey, the online survey, the paper survey that we distributed and that there was really a need to see if we… couldn’t make another push and get some additional responses. In the results of your efforts, of staff’s efforts, we picked up another twelve surveys, so a total of forty-six surveys- it didn’t necessarily change the results very much at all…It didn’t actually change the rankings.” Mayor Maldonado declared the public hearing closed and proceeded to the next item.

The public hearing concerning the 2016 tax year proposed property tax rate for the city was declared open by Mayor Maldonado. The commission discussed the proposed tax rate of .810 which, according to Interim City Manager Sanchez, is right below the rollback tax rate. “The lowest rate, according to the calculations available to us is .743… the highest is the .810 that we proposed. Our current tax rate is .760. Anything below that is not beneficial to us moving forward,” Sanchez went on to say. At this public hearing the community had the opportunity to express any concerns regarding the increasing tax rate. No one came forth.

The next item brought up was a second budget workshop which involved a preliminary discussion with the city commission regarding the budget for fiscal year 2016-2017. Mayor Maldonado, Interim City Manager Sanchez and the rest of the commissioners, went into an extensive discussion regarding salaries of certain departments within the city. The commission voiced their concerns and discussed with Sanchez, the work it would take to accomplish all they hope to achieve with the proposed budget for 2016-2017. Before moving on to the final item of the evening, Sanchez meticulously went through the proposed budget with the commission.

The final item was an open public hearing to receive input from the public for the proposed budget for fiscal year 2016-2017. No one came forth and the public hearing was declared closed and the meeting was adjourned.