PRIEST RIVER — The City Council swiftly adopted its $7.6 million spending plan on Monday for the oncoming fiscal year.

The council was initially contemplating a $7,959,865 budget, which included a 12-percent increase in health care costs. However, officials and the city’s insurance broker developed an alternative plan that brought the increase down to 3 percent, which reduced the total budget to $7,865,193.

Mayor Jim Martin added that the water and sewer rate increase of $8.61 will be reduced by 73 cents.

“I know it’s not a huge amount, but there is some savings,” he said.

There was no public testimony during the hearing and there was little discussion among council members.

The city’s new health care plan, which was also approved by the council on Monday, is a three-tiered program designed to give employees choices.

“We all like choices in life. So to have one program, it doesn’t fit everyone’s needs,” Autumn Porter of Taylor Insurance told the counsel.

If employees selected the top-level, city-sponsored program, they would see their deductible increase from $2,000 to $3,000 and the threshold for out-of-pocket expenses would increase from $3,000 to $4,000.

However, they would receive improved pharmacy services benefits.

The mid-level option is in essence a renewal of the existing health care plan utilized by the city, which has a lower deductible and out-of-pocket threshold, although any cost differences would be drawn from the employee’s paycheck.

The third option is a buy-down plan paired with a health savings account.

The deductible is $6,000 per person and $12,000 per family. Employees who select this option would give up prescription and office-visit copays until the deductible is met.

“Option three, I think, is a great value for an individual who doesn’t have children at home and is super healthy,” Porter said.

Martin said the new health care plan provides employees with good options.

“It still provides a very good plan. One of things we didn’t want to do was start drastically reducing benefits to get the costs down,” he added.

Keith Kinnaird can be reached by email at kkinnaird@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow him on Twitter @KeithDailyBee.