Kiowa City Council changes worker's comp insurance
Seeking retired individuals who want to mow in mornings part-time
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June 29, 2022
Since Kiowa's City Council had no quorum for their original June meeting they held their meeting last Wednesday evening. The meeting lasted near three hours.
All councilpersons attended including: Janet Robison, B.J. Duvall, Brian Hill, Jason Thayer, Tom Wells and Mayor Bill Watson. Also attending was City Administrator Sam Demel, City Clerk Sheila Smith and City Utility Clerk Lynette Callison.
As they had reps from Conrady Insurance to make a presentation about worker's compensation insurance, council had them go first. Brendan Giesick spoke on behalf of Conrady while their president Chris Conrady sat in the audience.
As Giesick spoke Mayor Watson questioned nearly everything he said. Watson sells worker's compensation insurance to the city. The presentation lasted over an hour-and-a-half with the many interruptions.
Demel said the city is now paying over $17,000 annually for worker's comp. Conrady's presentation showed that joining the Midwest Public Risk Pool, which is a part of the Kansas Municipal Insurance Trust (KMIT), would save the city money.
Demel said by joining the pool, “We're saving $13,000 just on worker's comp. In 2021 we paid $21,000 plus for worker's comp.”
Kiowa's worker's comp rate in the pool will be $8836, Demel said. That cost for the rest of the year as of July 1 will be $4400.
“This is substantial savings to city. We're saving at least $4,000 for six months,” Demel said. He added that the pool is more of a risk, but said the benefits are “far better.”
Watson said matter-of-factly, “You're taking money out of the community.”
When a motion was made to approve Conrady Insurance Wells said after all the discussion for an hour-and-a-half he was confused so abstained from voting. That is considered a no vote. So the motion to go with Conrady Insurance (and the pool) passed by a vote of 4-1.
One other order of business is Demel said the city is behind on mowing grass. He seeks any retired individuals who are interested in mowing in the grass part-time in the mornings.
The remainder of the meeting will run in the Newsgram next week.
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