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BET receives actuary report and recommends modest employee and employer premium increases
Summary
The BET received a 2026 actuary report showing national medical/prescription trends well above the county’s recent experience and recommended a 3% employee premium increase and a 3.6% employer rate increase, with direction for staff to return with fund-by-fund impacts.
The Board of Equalization and Tax received the county’s 2026 health-plan actuary report and voted to recommend modest changes to employee and employer premium rates for FY 2025–26. The board recommended a 3% increase to employee premiums and a 3.6% increase to employer contribution rates, retroactive to July 1, 2025.
The actuary applied national trend assumptions — medical +12.2% and prescription +14.6% — to the county’s FY24 net costs and produced proposed funding rates that, if adopted exactly, would raise plan funding materially above the county’s recent experience. The presenter told the board the county’s actual combined medical and prescription expense rose about 1% last year and that the county’s longer-term historical average increase is about 3.6%.
Why it matters: actuarial trend assumptions are industry-standard inputs that produce “fully funded” rates intended to protect plans in a catastrophic year. The county has historically not adopted full actuarial rates and instead has used phased or smaller increases; last year BET approved a 3% approach. Board members said keeping increases steady and predictable helps departments and employees budget and can avoid large single-year spikes.
Details and board action: the board voted to receive the actuary report and then to recommend to the county budget board that employee premiums be increased about 3% (the motion passed with one recorded “no” vote) and employer contribution rates be increased about 3.6%, effective retroactively to July 1, 2025. Staff said the employer-side increase would cover most of the county’s FY25–26 supplemental need (the presenters estimated the combined employer changes would produce roughly $611,000–$735,000 depending on the exact calculation and fund splits, and when combined with other adjustments would largely close the transfer-on-the-watch-list shortfall of roughly $806,000).
Direction to staff: the board asked the benefits team to break the employer impact out by fund (general fund vs. special revenue) and provide a fund-level estimate at the follow-up meeting. Members also asked staff to confirm the general-fund share and to show how much of the FY25–26 supplemental request would be covered by the proposed premium changes.
Ending: the board set follow-up reporting for the next scheduled meeting so members could see fund-by-fund impacts before the budget board acts.
