Gilmer County, Ga – In a special called meeting on April 29th,2015, the Gilmer County Board of Commissioners approved a change in the county employee benefits package.
According to Human Resources Director, Diane Johnson, constant complaints by many employees about the selection of accepted service providers should be addressed in the new plan. As of July 1st, 2015, Gilmer county will be switching its vision benefits provider from Davis Vision and will now join it with Blue Cross Blue Shield, whom they already have the dental plan with. Director Johnson reported this would change the annual increase in the county budget drastically.

Without the change, the current vision plan would require an annual increase to the county budget of 6.66%, that is $5,773 annual increase to maintain Davis Vision.

With the new vision plan, Director Johnson says she has been able to negotiate terms with Blue Cross Blue Shield that would only require an annual increase of 0.93%, which is $805 annually.

This will also affect the renewal of general medical benefits with the county employees, but the Board declined to move forward with renewing the medical benefits packages without properly consulting and informing the affected employees of the changes.

Due to this, the Gilmer County Board of Commissioners are calling another Special Meeting on Friday, May 1st, 2015 in order to discuss and approve the Medical Benefits Renewal Plan in the presence of the all public citizens and county employees who wish to attend to discuss and learn about the changes to the plan.