2023 - Yarmouth Firefighters Local 122 vs. Town of Yarmouth

Yarmouth Firefighters Local 122 and Barrault and Associates Attorney Ally Presskreischer obtained a favorable award at arbitration regarding the payment of the Town’s health plan incentive payments. At the heart of this case are high-deductible insurance plans, an alternative to plans like HMOs, PPOs, and POS’s. High deductible plans work by requiring plan members to incur significant deductible expenses before receiving any benefits under their policy. This higher deductible lowers premiums for the Town and the Union members. High deductible plans are only permissible if employers offer employees health savings (“HSA”) accounts, which are funded by either employee or employer contributions. In this case, the Town unilaterally began prorating its annual HSA contribution, as well as members’ one-time incentive payment for joining the plan in cases where employees were not on their high deductible plan for the full health insurance year. Though the Arbitrator ultimately found that the Union had unknowingly agreed to the Town’s decision to prorate its annual HSA contribution years ago, he went on to agree with Attorney Presskreischer that the one-time incentive payment for employees joining the HSA plan cannot be prorated because doing so would create “even less incentive to make the election [to the HAS plan] desired by the Town.  The Town was thus ordered to make the grievants and similarly situated members whole.