| Board of Health Benefits balances need with reality By Erik Alsgaard UMCONNECTION STAFF Members of the Baltimore-Washington Conference Board of Pension and Health Benefits wrestled with their 2005 budget for nearly two hours March 3, seeking to find money to pay medical insurance claims while at the same time not increasing the overall conference budget by double-digit numbers. Pension and Health Benefits, which accounts for about half of the Baltimore-Washington Conference budget, had originally asked the Conference Finance and Administration committee the group responsible for financial oversight of the conference for a $5 million increase for 2005 over 2004. Board members noted during the meeting that if churches in the Baltimore-Washington Conference paid 100 percent of their apportionments, the 2005 asking would be covered. In 2004, churches paid 90.7 percent. The increase is needed, the Board said, because of a decrease in the medical plan reserve funds to dangerously low levels, along with rising medical expense claims. (March 3, UMConnection) The revised 2005 budget adopted by the Board reduced that increase to $3.5 million dollars. That same budget includes more than $1 million in cost savings in medical expense plan changes. In addition, a 35 percent increase in premiums for participants is in the mix. The Board also decided to stop paying for conference Journals for retirees in 2005, and providing an adoption grant benefit. Those cuts saved $12,000. Board members claim that the $3.5 million increase is not enough to cover all the items conference health insurance participants need to keep its health insurance plan alive. We have to replenish the medical expense plan reserve fund, said the Rev. Dan Wright, chair of the Board. If we dont, and that fund runs out, we stop paying claims. Board members struggled to put into words how they wanted CFA to deal with this problem. The 2005 Pension and Health Benefits budget was adopted with the provision that the group requested CFA to recommend to the annual conference that if funding is not sufficient to pay medical expense plan claims, the conference would take responsibility for paying those claims. What contingency plan could they give us? asked Wright. Im sure something would be worked out. The medical expense reserve fund currently has just over $1 million, or about enough money to cover two average months of claims, said Carole Chaloner Silberhorn, executive director of the Conference Board of Pension and Health Benefits. Experts in the health insurance field, she said, use a six month figure as a minimum for this fund. For the Baltimore-Washington Conference, she said, that would equal $3 million, leaving the conference $2 million short. That $2 million shortfall will not be replaced in one year, the Board decided. In 2005, $1 million will be sought for the fund, with an additional $1 million sought in 2006. We need to continue to apportion funds annually to keep pace with the increasing claims, said Silberhorn. The Board had originally asked CFA to approve making up the $2 million shortfall in 2005. The committee sent the budget back to the Board, saying that the bottom line had to be reduced. We can not ethically go before the annual conference (with this reduced budget) and say this is what we need, said the Rev. Ken Lyons, pastor of Severna Park UMC. If we approve a budget without fully funded reserves, then the annual conference is responsible for paying claims, said Mike Earman of Severna Park. I cannot believe that the Baltimore-Washington Conference would let the medical plan go defunct. What Im proposing is that the annual conference ratify an agreement that the conference will not let the medical expense plan go defunct. Two members of CFA Wanda Cockrell of Bethesda UMC, and the Rev. Charles Harrell of Faith UMC in Rockville, were in attendance, to listen to the discussion and take the Boards concerns back to their next meeting. The Board is saying loud and clear, we have concerns, Harrell said. | 
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