Municipalities Behind the Curve in Purchasing Employee Benefits

By Sheri Gilbert, Marketing Director, Valley Schools/HPACT

For most Arizona cities and towns, medical, dental, life insurance and other employee benefits remain a huge cost over which they have little or no control. They are faced with the equally unpopular choices of higher premiums with benefits reductions or shifting costs to their employees.

Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase announced that they would form an independent health care company for their employees in the United States. The three giant firms employ over one million employees. Increasingly, large employers are forming alliances to purchase benefits for their employees. The impact of this move was great enough to actually impact healthcare stock prices.

In Arizona, school districts have done the same, bringing together economies of scale to significantly decrease costs while also increasing their employee benefit choices. For three decades the Valley Schools Management Group has provided joint purchasing of insurance for school districts as a non-profit organization.

HPACT allows municipalities to combine with other government employers to have negotiating power in the market while maintaining control over their benefits. Under HPACT, a city or town can choose its own providers and plans, yet have the lowest costs negotiated for them without compromising on service.

The power of HPACT is that your non-profit representative is negotiating rates based upon a much larger group of employees, resulting in significant reductions in costs. In fact, in the history of VSMG and HPACT, every employer that has joined has saved substantial money while maintaining their benefit plans.

Interested in this new trend? It’s free to get a comparison of benefits and costs from HPACT and it’s free to join or leave. For more information, call Sheri Gilbert at (623) 594-4370 or visit our website to learn more at www.hpactaz.org.

Sheri Gilbert is the Marketing Director for Valley Schools. She has been with VSMG for over a decade and is an expert in employee benefits.

Contributed by HPACT, a League Endorsed Partner