San Francisco Lawmaker Withdraws Health Care Proposal

August 5, 2011 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - San Francisco lawmakers have voted to drop a measure that would have changed the city’s health care law so that unused amounts contributed to health reimbursement arrangements for employees would be rolled over from year to year.

The law requires employers with more than 20 employees to spend a certain amount for employee health care coverage, and most satisfy the requirement through payment of health care insurance premiums.  However, employers also can contribute the required amounts to health reimbursement arrangements for employees, from which, at the end of the year, unused funds revert back to the employer, according to Business Insurance.  

Business Insurance reports that last month, David Campos, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors proposed to amend the requirement so that unused HRA funds automatically would roll over to the next year. The proposal was generated by a June report by the city’s Office of Labor Standards Enforcement that found that only 20% of the $62 million allocated to the plans last year was actually reimbursed to employees.   

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Campos withdrew the measure because, observers said, he lacked the votes necessary to approve it.  

Business Insurance said in all, about 13% of employers last year used the HRA approach to satisfy the spending requirement, according to the Office of Labor Standards Enforcement report.

Westminster Consulting Hires Senior Research Associate

August 5, 2011 (PLANSPONSOR.com) – Westminster Consulting has announced the appointment of Gabriel Potter as Senior Investment Research Associate. 

According to the announcement, Potter comes to the firm with experience in investment manager due diligence, optimizing strategic and tactical asset allocations, and conducting and publishing market research. He most recently served as an Institutional Consulting Analyst with Graystone Consulting, the institutional business unit of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.    

Potter earned his B.A. in Economics from the University of Rochester and an M.B.A. with concentrations in Corporate Finance and Computers & Information Systems from the University of Rochester’s William E. Simon School of Business. He holds the Series 7 and Series 66 licenses from the NASD, as well as the Accredited Investment Fiduciary designation from the Center of Fiduciary studies. 

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-Sara Kelly 

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