A joint legislative panel is set to negotiate how much some public employees should be required to pay into their health insurance benefits.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville says the payment structure for health benefits for public employees should have been overhauled several years ago.
But he says lawmakers should still work with public employee unions to find the savings.
“We want to try and be as flexible as we can and allow as much local input as we can, but the time to act is way past right now, this should have been dealt with 10 years ago or more.”
Ray Holman is with UAW Local 6,000. Holman represents state employees who won’t be affected by the proposed changes to public employee benefits.
He says that public employees have already made many concessions over the past few years.
“That’s been done at the bargaining table, and that’s been a proven place to find those savings.”
But, Holman says, if collective bargaining is compromised in the measure before the House and Senate conference committee, all public employees will be on alert and at risk of paying more for their health benefits.
