GREENFIELD — After a one-day bargaining session, city employees have agreed to the city’s plan to switch Greenfield’s insurance provider from Health New England to the state-backed Group Insurance Commission (GIC.)
Mayor Virginia “Ginny” Desorgher told city councilors on Tuesday that she met with representatives of the Greenfield Educators Association and other city employee unions and signed an agreement to switch to the GIC. Switching to the GIC would allow the city to save money on insurance costs. For the 2027 fiscal year, the city’s health insurance rates were expected to increase by 19.3% or approximately $2 million.
“We sat down and hammered this out for about two and a half hours, and people voted unanimously to move over to the GIC,” Desorgher said. “We received signatures from everybody at my office yesterday about 11 a.m., so that is all set…. I feel very confident and I want to thank everybody here.”
Last week, the City Council voted to adopt Massachusetts General Law Chapter 32B Section 19, which allows the city to switch its insurance provider only after reaching an agreement with a public employee committee. The mayor also had floated the idea of adopting Chapter 32B Sections 21-23 instead, as those sections would allow a three-party review panel to make the decision to switch if an agreement cannot be reached after a month of negotiations with city employees.
The council opted for Section 19 after hearing from city employees who said they wished to maintain their right to negotiate on their health care coverage, and promised they were in favor of switching to the GIC.
Desorgher said city employees quickly agreed to switch to the GIC, and the city will maintain the current coverage split with employees. The city covers 80% of HMO costs and 40% of PPO costs, and employees cover the rest. While they will need to meet again to sign a revised version of the agreement that corrects a few typos, she is grateful that an agreement was reached so quickly, so the city can notify the GIC of its intention to switch in time for it to go into effect beginning January 2027.
“We did great, we have great employees and they were fabulous,” Desorgher said. “On all sides everybody worked together. So thank you to each and every one of you.”
