Clear Lake council to discuss early retirement incentive program

CLEAR LAKE — Clear Lake’s City Council tonight will discuss establishing an early retirement incentive program. The voluntary program would assist eligible city employees who wish to retire but cannot do so because of medical insurance coverage concerns.

To be eligible, participants would have to be current full-time or full-time equivalent employees who are age 56 or older and have not less than 25 years of continuous employment with the city. Those who would participate in the program at age 60 would remain up to five years or when they become Medicare eligible on the city’s group health insurance plan under a single policy. Employees can choose to continue family health coverage by paying the difference between the cost of the family plan and the city’s contribution toward a single coverage premium.

An employee who retires prior to age 60 can utilize post-retirement accumulated paid leave conversion credit to pay health insurance premiums. If that would be insufficient to cover the cost of health insurance to the age of 60, the employee would be responsible for the full premium until age 60, at which point the premium for a single policy would be covered by the city.

Eligible employees must retire from city employment between August 1st and September 30th of this year, with notice of intent to retire having to be filed prior to July 17th.

The Clear Lake City Council meets tonight at 6 o’clock at City Hall.