Employee Benefit Trust Minutes - 02/05/2025 City of Wichita Falls
Employee Benefits Trust Board
Meeting Minutes
February 5, 2025
The meeting was held in the Conference Room at Big Blue Tower, 719 Scott Ave, Wichita
Falls, TX 76301 .
Present: Kinley Hegglund, City Attorney
James McKechnie, Interim City Manager
Paul Menzies, Assistant City Manager
Christi Klyn, Director of Human Resources
Stephen Calvert, Chief Financial Officer
Brian Lester, Assistant Director of Human Resources
Lori Forester, Employee Benefits Specialist II
Kenneth Engledow, Human Resource Generalist
Agenda Items:
Meeting was called to order at 3:00PM
II. Minutes from the previous meeting on September 30, 2024 were approved.
III. Discussion of RFP process and timeline for Benefits Consultants
a. HUB is the current Broker for the City of Wichita Falls and has been the only
professional benefit consultant for the City since 2012. The committee agrees that it is
important to move forward with the RFP process at this time.
b. A sub-committee for the RFP process was discussed and it was agreed upon that the
members will be Stephen Calvert, Mike Battaglino, Christi Klyn, Kinley Hegglund, and
Brian Lester.
c. The timeline was discussed and it was agreed upon that the bid will be posted by the
end of February or beginning of March. There will be a 30-day time period for the sub-
committee to receive bids and review candidates. The sub-committee will then invite
the top finalists to give a full presentation to the board. Estimated time frame to vote will
be June of 2025.
IV. Discussion regarding prescription plan provider changes for 2025
a. There have been issues with the transition from Express Scripts to BCBS Prime
the beginning of this new plan year. Many employees have expressed concerns
regarding the cost of their medications due several variables including, but not
limited to, the $200 deductible for individuals and $400 deductible for families.
b. Early on, it was identified that part of the setup on Prime's side was mistakenly
applying charges toward the deductible instead of the copay. This has since been
corrected, and pharmacy claims have been rerun from 1/1/-1/7. Refunds are
expected to be issued within 60 days.
c. Additionally, it was discovered that the Walgreens network had not been properly
applied, which caused a delay in the mailing of welcome letters on January 27th
d. HUB identified that there would be 10% negative formulary disruption to members
during the RFP process. This included 162 drug exclusions and 29 drugs moving
up a tier to higher copays. Disruption in this range is standard when moving PBM
due to periodic formulary adjustments. Notification to the impacted members were
sent from Prime beginning in October and again in December.
e. Although there was a $200 deductible ($400 deductible for family) specifically for
pharmacy in the past, many employees are saying that they do not remember
having to pay these deductibles as they are now.
f. Calls and complaints have decreased over time, but will continue to be monitored.
The Employee Benefits team will continue to help resolve individual issues as they
arise.
V. With no further business, the meeting was adjourned.
Prepared by:
Lori Forester, EBSII City of Wichita Falls/HR-EBT