City Looks to Offer Better Options For Healthcare – Could Save Over $3 Million

At Tuesday’s City of Cortland Common Council meeting, Director of Administration & Finance, Elizabeth Greenwood, provided an overview of the tentative 2026 City of Cortland budget. The tentative budget will include a 4% property tax increase, a lower increase than previous year’s Greenwood says.

The median single-family home in the City of Cortland would see their taxes increase by about $70; the median single family home in Cortland is $145,000. In 2025, the increase over 2024 was $82.

One of the area’s the city has looked at saving millions of dollars is in healthcare coverage. If the city elects to keep the status quo, it would cost the city, in 2026, $6,989,868, an 18% over 2025. However, the city has found a way to provide, they say, equal or better coverage that would also save the city $3,053,988. Greenwood says healthcare is the single largest expense for the City of Cortland.

“Our premium increases are already at 18% this year, with double-digit increases continuing over the next several years. Should we choose to stay with our current option, [the city] will need to make some considerable adjustments across [the] budget to pay for it.” Greenwood said.

“Because of that, we are looking at making a recommendation to consider a change to our current healthcare to an option that is better for both the city and our employees, both current and retired.” Greenwood continued.

The change would need approval by the Common Council. Speaking further on the proposed change is City of Cortland Corporation Counsel, Randall Lewis. Lewis said the insurance coverage that would be provided would be an improvement for all city employees. He says the savings come on how the city puts its money in “different buckets.”

“What we’re doing is we’re basically taking on some of the risk that would normally be covered by the insurance company. That being said, even if we completely max out our risk, we’re still further ahead than staying on Classic Blue. We’re very confident, conservatively budgeting, the money that we put up to cover the difference between what they had in Classic Blue and what we will have in the Bronze plan is covered by an HRA.” Lewis told the Common Council

Lewis says the city expects a little over a million dollars from the HRA money to come back at the end of the year. Even if the city spent all of the HRA funds, Lewis says the city would still be about $2 million dollars ahead compared to the current plan. The city would also move to a state-wide purchasing consortium for retirees. Lewis says this larger consortium, which is community-rated, is 50 cents on the dollar cheaper for the exact same coverage than the current one through Tompkins County.

“So a plan that would’ve cost $2,200 for a couple. Will now cost $1,100 for a couple. So exactly the same coverage, exactly same plan. Set them up side-by-side, they look identical.” Lewis continued.

“We know that those policies that are already twice as expensive in 2027, will go up in 15% in the consortium. The state-wide consortium has guaranteed us that they will go up no more than 7.5%. So again, not only do we have the savings in 2026, we’ll have that same savings in 2027.”

Lewis says the Bronze premiums through BlueCross Blueshield as “substantially less” than the Classic Blue premiums. He says a single-worker will pay about $1,000 less a year in premiums and families about $3,000 less per-year. Under the Bronze plan, prescription out-of-pocket costs will not occur.

“When you went to get a prescription, you’d have a co-pay of $5, $10, $30 or whatever it was. That will no longer be the case because that counts towards the deductible and out-of-pocket max. So when you go get a prescription, they’ll give them their insurance card, they’ll give them their HRA card and they won’t have to pay anything out-of-pocket.”

Lewis says when the city first talked to the unions representing the police and fire departments, they thought it was too good to be true. After vetting through their own experts, Lewis says, they have confirmed, with everything falling in place, it’ll be everything the city said it was going to be. The only difference is a limited number of OT/PT under the new plan, a maximum of 60 per-year.

When asked about co-pays by Deputy Mayor Beckwith, Lewis says because it’s an HRA fully funding both the out-of-pocket maxes, there are no co-pays under the new plan.

“The retirees will have the same level of coverage as they do currently. Equal or better than they have today.” Lewis said when asked about retiree coverage by Councilmember Lane.

“The retirees are actually going on, are going onto a plan called Plan 1, because this is a specific retirement plan. A retiree over 65 will be on Plan 1, which the benefit is equal or better than the old classic blue, and equal or better than the MS3 plan that was available to them before.” Lewis said. “People who aren’t 65 will be treated exactly the same way as a current employee. They will go on the Bronze Plan, they will get the fully funded HRA, they will have no co-pays, no prescription co-pays, and again, their premium will be less than it is today.”

“Talking to a couple of the first responder police and fire folks that were getting close to retirement, they were excited because they thought that under their current sick days they had in their bank, they’d be able to cover about six years of premiums for Classic Blue. It’s probably going to be more than double that for the Bronze Plan for them.”

The new plans are still under BlueCross BlueShield. Same providers, same exact formulary, Lewis says.