Athens City Council discusses changing their insurance for certain city employees and appointees.

ATHENS, Ohio –– Athens City Council is potentially changing to being insured by the Public Entities Pool of Ohio (PEP) from Ohio Municipal Joint Self-Insurance Pool (OMJSP) after the past 25-30 years.

The PEP coverage would be in place of a traditional surety bond for public officials such as council members and all employees/appointees that are required to be bonded under Ohio law.

The Faithful Performance of Duty coverage, or House Bill 444, recently made it so that insurance would cover a group, rather than just individuals. Due to this change, the Deputy Service Safety Director, Andrew Chiki, looked into getting a new provider.

However, Mayor Steve Patterson made it very clear that there were no problems with their current insurance provider, but ultimately saving money is always a plus.

According to Chiki, switching over to PEP would save almost $18,000. Many members of the council seem to be in favor of PEP due to their good reputation of being very responsive to their clients.

If the city chooses PEP coverage, they must decide to use this coverage document for all of the required bonded public officials as an “employee dishonesty and faithful performance of duty policy,” in lieu of surety bonds.

The city of Athens is a self-insurer; so the city has to provide it’s private insurance. The insurance provides coverage for city officials in departments that could be liable to lawsuits.

In other business, Athens City Council also discussed:

The approval of moving $100,000 from the general fund to the parking garage fund. This was discussed because of debts from past renovations, as well as the decrease in revenue due to Covid-19.
The increase in wages for Kurt Male. Male worked for the city of Athens for over 35 years and recently retired, but did not want to. Due to lack of employees in the department of Engineering and Public Works (EPW), Male was hired as the Assistant Director. Due to Male being so respected in the community for his 36 years of previous work, he was given over a 25% pay increase from $29 an hour to $31.70 an hour. According to councilmember Sam Crowl, Male will also receive healthcare benefits and retirement money.
The approval of the creation of a Union Street Downtown Redevelopment District, or a DRD in Athens.
Increasing the authorized expenditure for the Richland Avenue Pedestrian Passageway Project. “We have spent a lot of money on this project and this walkway, so I hope people are actually using it. I don't want to see anyone get injured as that is what we are trying to prevent the most,” said councilmember Crowl.

Until next time

Mia White