Last Wednesday, July 23, the Plan Design Committee (PDC) held its regularly scheduled meeting amid proposed statutory state budget and legislative changes to the SHBP.
The FY2026 budget mandates that by July 31 the State and public employees’ representatives on the Plan Design Committee (PDC) must separately submit cost savings proposals to the plan actuary. The plan actuary must review the proposals to determine whether the plan design proposals will result in recurring and actuarially verifiable cost savings, noting whether they will be achieved in the first six months of the plan year 2026 in the amount of $100 million. The League released a detailed notice on the budget amendment.
The PDC met for a presentation by AON outlining the recommended rate increases for the SHBP for plan year 2026. For plan year 2026, AON has recommended a rate increase of 36.5% for SHBP Local Governments and 19.7% for SHBP.
This does not include the $100 million mandated savings in the FY26 budget. Committee members representing labor unions expressed concerns that the presentation did not include the $100 million and asked for updated recommendations for savings as the last report regarding potential savings was provided to the PDC in mid-March.
Additionally, members representing labor unions noted that a request was made to review Horizon’s claims reports, however, shortly before the meeting was set to begin, it was reported that they could not review the Horizon reports due to their “proprietary” nature. The AON presentation was not available at the meeting; however, it will be posted once it is made available.
The PDC unanimously tabled all resolutions until the next meeting, which is scheduled for August 27.
The League will continue to provide updates as necessary.
Contact: Erin Knoedler, Legislative Analyst, eknoedler@njlm.org, 609-695-3481, x116.