Kosciusko County commissioners approve multiple fund budgets, discuss parking garage and health-insurance corrections

Kosciusko County commissioners approved a series of routine budget items during a multi-hour budget hearing while staff outlined larger planning items, including a proposed downtown parking garage and an accounting correction for employee health insurance.

County staff and department heads presented budgets for multiple funds and moved to adopt the “twos, threes and fours” — routine line-item approvals — for each fund. Commissioners made and seconded motions on numerous funds and approved them by voice vote.

The proceedings also included extended discussion of two higher-profile issues: how the county is accounting for health-insurance costs after an increase in the COBRA rate, and early plans for a multilevel parking garage downtown, for which the county has budgeted preliminary design and planning funds.

County staff told commissioners the COBRA rate used to allocate health-insurance costs to departments rose from about $946.50 per employee to $1,305, a change that shifted where the county must book portions of those costs. Staff said the underlying annual insurance premium for the county did not rise dramatically, but because the COBRA rate is the basis used to charge departments into the health-insurance fund, the change requires moving or budgeting additional dollars in the insurance account to avoid drawing down the stop‑loss reserve (the county’s…