Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Employee Benefits topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Fulton County keeps employees’ monthly health-insurance contribution steady for 2026, lowering share to 8%
Summary
The Fulton County Board of Commissioners on Nov. 4 authorized the HR administrator to sign the PCHIP/Highmark 2026 renewal and voted to hold employees’ monthly contribution at its current dollar amount; because premiums rose, that will reduce employees’ percentage share from 10% to 8%.
Fulton County Commissioners on Nov. 4 authorized HR Administrator Mary Huston to execute the county’s PCHIP/Highmark health insurance renewal for 2026 and voted to keep employees’ monthly contribution unchanged, a decision the board said will reduce the employees’ percentage share from 10% to 8% because overall premiums increased.
The decision followed a second budget review with CFO Mike Lamb of Wessel & Co. and Fiscal Administrator Sue Reed. Commissioners set a follow-up meeting with department heads for Nov. 18 to seek a verbal budget approval that would allow the county to advertise the proposed 2026 budget to the public.
Huston presented a spreadsheet to the board showing that maintaining the same dollar amount of employee monthly contributions would lower employees’ percentage of the premium in 2026. Commissioner Randy H. Bunch moved that there be no increase to employees’ monthly amount for health insurance in 2026; the motion carried with all in favor.
Commissioners did not specify the county’s total premium increase in the minutes, nor the county’s total projected 2026 health-insurance cost; those figures were not specified in the meeting record. The board’s next scheduled step on the budget is the Nov. 18 meeting with department heads, after which the county intends to advertise the budget for public review and comment.
The motion was recorded as an administrative authorization: Mary Huston is to execute the insurer renewal documents on behalf of the county; Commissioners did not record a separate formal amendment to plan benefits in the minutes.
Looking ahead, the county will present the advertised budget and any resulting adoption steps at subsequent public meetings; no additional action on employee contributions was recorded at the Nov. 4 meeting.
