Shreveport City Workers Not Happy About Health Care Increases

Some city workers say higher health insurance premiums have wiped out pay raises given to many first responders in Shreveport.

City workers are not happy about the increased health care costs they are facing. Anthony Sutis with the Shreveport Police Officers Association tells the council some employees were told the increase would be 5%, but some workers are facing 30% increases. He says his increase was $80 a paycheck.

He says this is an issue that is one of the tools that a recruiter can use to try to bring in new police officers. "But if you look at benefit packages at other agencies around the area, we pay more in insurance and our salaries need to be more competitive."
Sutis says this is a detriment to our department and to recruiting and retention efforts. He has urged the Shreveport City Council to take another look at the plan to raise health care premiums for employees.

The President of the SPOA Dr. Michael Carter sent this letter to city leaders:

Councilman John Nickelson says

Governing the city and maintaining fiscal responsibility requires hard decisions and at this point we just need to all work together and come up with the best solution we can for the city's employees. That again, is not going to include undoing the negotiations we have already had with Blue Cross.

The city is in the midst of open enrollment now and there's really no chance to change the planned increases. Mayor Adrian Perkins says he is putting an across-the-board pay raise in the budget for 2022 which would include all city workers.