Hartford changing health plan for town’s highway workers

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The Hartford Highway Department garage.

The town of Hartford’s highway department, represented by the Teamsters, has been working with a two-year expired contract and is still waiting to come to terms on a new agreement.

The town board and highway department are now meeting through mediation sessions but at the October board meeting both the board and highway department discussed the grievance filed regarding changing their health savings account to a health reimbursement account.

“We have a labor agreement with you guys that is in an impasse because neither side can come to an agreement,” town supervisor Dana Haff said. “Why can’t your side come to an agreement?”

Hartford supervisor Dana Haff

On Nov. 1, the highway department will change from health savings to a health reimbursement account. A single plan currently receives a lump sum of $2,200, a family receives $4,400, at the beginning of the term. The reason for the change is seen by Haff as to save money, while it has alarmed the workers of the highway department for different reasons, one being the leftover money being used for other forms of health coverage like eye and dental care.

“I wear prescription glasses and I can purchase new glasses with that so it’s an added benefit,” said highway department worker Jason Morehouse.

Haff is concerned that if the town were to stay with a health savings account, it will lose money because of the account being held by the individual, rather than the town. Haff is concerned that if an individual were to leave soon after their disbursement, they can take their account with them.

“We suspect that maybe the insurance renews in November, somebody in December says, ‘oh, you know my wife’ or ‘I am going to have a procedure please give me all of my deductible now,’ so the town would give them all of their $4,400 in their account and then three weeks later, they quit! They got the whole annual shot, and then they quit and leave,” he said.

“Because it’s a health thing, I really can’t ask a lot of HIPPA questions, but you could have someone come to me, and we have suspected it has happened in the past which is why we want it changed.” Haff said. “You know, sometimes when these things happen, with a consequence, you change it at your first opportunity.”

Haff said the town highway department originally asked for a 4% increase. Rather than that, Haff negotiated 2%. The highway department believes its employees should be compensated more for the work they complete that is outside of their job description. Morehouse commented about the work they do.

Left to right: The Hartford Highway Department crew of David Swezey, Jeff Chapin and Jason Morehouse.

“I have a specific job title and I have specific job duties. I can do maintenance on these trucks which entails changing the oil, checking the air pressure on the tires, just minor stuff,” he said. “We’ve changed rear-ends, we’ve changed transmission, we’ve changed tires. None of this is our actual job to do. We don’t have to do it. We do it to help save the town money.”

One job the department has been working on recently is a sand screen to field out large rocks in the trucks when they are sanding roads during the winter.

“The screen out back, the sand screen that we’re building right now, we don’t have to build that,” Morehouse said. “That sand screen would probably cost $30,000 to $40,000 and we can do it for half the price here. We’re all talented, we can all do it, so we go ahead and do it even though we don’t have to. It just seems that the board doesn’t appreciate us and the things we do to help save this town money.”

Haff also mentioned that the board would rather see the highway department change their hours as well.

“When you work four 10-hour days, most highway departments do that during the summertime, they call that summertime hours. They’re working 10-hour days because there’s more daylight,” he said.

“In the winter, you come off summer construction hours because you don’t have all the daylight… If they stay on summer hours all year round, even during the winter, they’re coming to work and going home when it’s dark.”

Haff argues that with no coverage on Friday during winter, that will cause issues in the school district when the afternoon bus runs start. However, it isn’t Haff’s choice to make. Jeff Chapin spoke about the hours and how they are decided.

“With the town garage, Greg (Brown) is in charge of that and he’s the elected official. He chose to work four 10-hour days and he has the option to go back to five 8-hour days if he chooses to,” Chapin said. ‘Ted Haff wants us to be back to five 8-hour days and that’s what’s holding the contract up because it says it’s up to Greg’s discretion what days and what hours we work. “It’s not his decision.”