29 May 2014 BOS Meeting: Healthcare and Claims

29 May 2014: Board of Supervisors’ Meeting @ 5p

Thank you for your appointment this evening.

The Transparency Committee would like to report on 2 Claims issues this evening.  The first issue has to do with Health Insurance payments and the Affordable Care Act.  The second issue we have been working on since Feb 2012 and it has to do with the payments made to Gold Strike Casino that were “miscoded” by our Accounting Department.

1. The public needs some clarification concerning whether Tunica County is self insured or is not self insured.  To be self insured, Tunica County would have to be footing the entire cost of the healthcare for Tunica County employees and these claims would need to be entered on the monthly claims docket.  To the best of my knowledge payments have not been put on the claims docket.

What I believe to be the case is that our current healthcare insurance was built to have an employer cap at $60K per person and Cigna would pick-up after this threshold had been met.  To me this makes our policy not a self insured policy but a policy with a very high employer deductible.  If this is true, then there needs to be a discussion about Cigna’s responsibility of notification and/or refund each Jul 1^st under the Affordable Care Act.  This means that Cigna would be responsible for writing a letter to Tunica County explaining why we are not getting a refund or Cigna needs to be sending a check to Tunica County if they did not spend 80% of our premiums on our employee’s healthcare.

For the past 2 years, our Committee has been asking this question and not getting answers.  What we need to know is 1. Are we really self insured and therefore don’t qualify for a refund or 2. Are we due an explanation or a check from Cigna.

Additionally, our Committee is making the following request.  All of you ran on the Democratic ticket to be elected to the offices you now hold.  Would you consider writing a letter to Gov Bryant asking him to take the Medicaid expansion money that is being offered to each and every state under the Affordable Care Act?  Maybe you would consider asking other Supervisors in other counties to do the same.

What would this do for Tunica County?  If we pay a worker $8.50 an hour he or she will make $17,680 per year.  For a family of 3, this would be below the poverty level.  If some of our employees are only earning poverty level wages, perhaps they would qualify for Medicaid and this would cut our Healthcare insurance expense.

So, please consider writing the letter(s).

DOCUMENTATION FOR #2 BELOW THAT WAS PRESENTED IN THE MEETING WILL BE  AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC ALONG WITH THE BOS MINUTES AFTER THE 1ST MEETING IN JUNE 2014. 

2. The second item in the Transparency report this evening is the ongoing questions and lack of documentation with the Sheriff/Homeland Security/Emergency Management claims and payment to Gold Strike Casino.  You will recall these two claims ($5,738.94 and $5,971.25) total $11,710.19 and were reportedly “miscoded” in our Accounting Department.

This is our update:

1. The Grant (S91EO72) that is supposed to pay for these expenses was granted to the Tunica County Sheriff’s Department for Force Protection from the MS Department of Public Safety – Office of Homeland Security.  The Program Name is: Fiscal Year 09 ODP Homeland Security Grant Program.  The grant period is: 10/01/2009 to 06/30/20ll.  The award date is 15 Jun 2010.  The amount of the grant is $61,770.00.

Notes on the above information:  I personally had several conversations with the former Board Attorney about exactly who has control over the monies in the Homeland Security budget and the Emergency Management budget.  My sense of what I was told was that these three departments have to work together but the Sheriff does not have control over HLS or EM budgets.  I believe this report will show differently.  I believe the Sheriff has control of these budgets and grants through his employee, Randy Stewart.

2. The next page in this report will further show the lack of clear lines between the Sheriff and Homeland Security and EM.  This page is a letter requesting reimbursement under the Grant listed in 2 (a) of this report.  This request is written on Sheriff Hamp’s letterhead.  The letter is dated 21 Dec 2011.  The letter was signed by Becky Pope for Randy Stewart and uses all three of Stewart’s titles.  (Don’t even think of blaming any of this on Becky Pope.  We will be watching.)

The grant period for this request is dated 8/1/2011 to 8/31/2012. (It appears there may have been a renewal of the grant listed in 2(a) but the documentation was not provided or could not be found.)  The request of the refund is $15,373.52.  This is $3,663.33 more then the 2 claims for $11,710.19.  So, where is this money?

3. The next page is a copy of a demand check written to Gold Strike Casino.  The date of this check is 3 Oct 2011.  I don’t believe this check was approved by the previous BOS. The claims for this expense did not show up in the Claims Docket until Nov 2011.

4. The next 2 pages contain a bill from Gold Strike Casino for the $5,738.94 and the purchase order for this expense.  The date of the bill is 20 Sep 2011.  This is a bill for 18 days of buffets (8/10/11 to 8/28/11).  There is a requisition number (67785) and a purchase order (60738) dated 8/8/11 signed by Randy Stewart for this expense.  The quantity of buffets is blank.  The County Department is listed as EMA and the Budget to be charged is HLS.  More blurred lines. 

5. The last page of this report is a bill from Gold Strike Casino for $5,971.25.  This bill is also dated 20 Sep 2011.  There is a note on this bill that says “Room List (see attached)”.  This information was not provided or was not found.  There is a reference to a purchase order (60681).  This purchase order was not provided or was not found.

Remember the County Administrator trying to show us what was previously sloppy and unmanageable paperwork left by the last Administration?  This report shows at the very least sloppy paperwork.  This report may even show misappropriation of funds.  Make no mistake.  It is a mess.

This is what I do know.  Until the change in Administration, we have had a devil of a time getting information that should be readily available to the public.  We have been working on this particular Claim since Feb 2012.  In Feb 2014, we submitted a Freedom of Information Letter for the documentation to support these claims.  The current Administration has done its best but going through the piles and piles of paperwork has proven to be too time consuming.  I might add we may still have some employees left over from the last Administration who don’t fully understand that the public has a right and an obligation to question their government.

Okay, all of that being said, I would like to ask Randy Stewart, through the BOS, to get together all of the documentation to support these claims and to provide an explanation of what happened to the $3,663.33 difference between the claims and the request for reimbursement.

One more thing, Sonny you asked me to take a second look at the claims…to make sure you didn’t overlook something and I am happy to do that every month.  What I am not happy about is a request to pay $30 for a copy of the claims.  I worked with Mr. Thompson and we decided that everyone should have access to the claims.  What was worked out was a copy of the monthly claims docket is being placed in the public records room each month after the first meeting.  However, it sure would be easier for me to do the job you asked me to do if I had a copy of the claims.  Can you do anything to make this $30 go away?