AGAWAM – The Agawam City Council met for its regular meeting on June 2, at which councilors approved  health trusts for retirees.

Councilor Dino Mercadante said TR 2021-40 and TR 2021-41 are relatively the same trust. One represents health insurance and the other is the dental insurance trust. Both of these benefit retirees in the town of Agawam. He explained that in a subcommittee meeting, both were voted on and approved.

“The highlights of all of them was a discussion of saving money based on the rate that Blue Cross Blue Shield was charging and pretty simply put, the town of Agawam will be the bank. They are going to administer the payments that have to be made,” said Mercadante. They will not be hiring any people to administer this plan, there are no stipends involved, and it’s a cost saving.

Mercadante also said that during the subcommittee meeting he read a statement: “In this day of spiraling upward costs of goods and services, it is the towns obligation to exhaust all measures to protect the taxpayer, but not lose sight of the quality of services we have become accustomed to as residents and employees of the town of Agawam.”

The first vote was made by Councilor Cecilia Calabrese and seconded by Councilor Mario Tedeshi. On the second one was Councilor Paul Cavallo and Tedeshi. Both received a 4 to 0 vote with one absent.

Councilor George Bitzas said, “I do support this idea and I’m very happy to see that other cities and towns also implement this.” This includes Chicopee, Westfield, and others. Bitzas believes this will benefit the town as a whole and this is only the beginning.

“This is a trust that’s going to be audited on a regular basis, so there’s going to be a great deal of oversight on this money to make sure that everything is well administered, as we know that it will be,” said Calabrese.

When it came to vote for the resolution, the councilors voted unanimously in favor of the TR 2021-40. Councilor Robert Rossi made a motion for TR 2021-41, and was seconded by Councilor Gerald Smith and Cavallo.

Cavallo said, in the last seven years, the dental plan has not gone up. “That’s quite something to say about the plan and the people in Agawam who take care of themselves and work hard about their health.”

The dental plan was approved with a 10 to 0 vote with one absent.

Council President Christopher Johnson shared with members the resolution to accept a donation of two Fairplay scoreboards and shot clocks for the high school gymnasium, along with the cost for relocation of the old equipment to the junior high school gymnasium in honor of Peter E. Hanson.

“This is a very generous donation being made to the town, so our thanks obviously goes out to the Hanson family for that generosity,” said Johnson.

The equipment and labor is nearly $12,000.

All council members voted in favor of this resolution.

In regard to the annual operating budget for fiscal year 2022, councilors expressed their support.

Rossi said, “I thought the budget was well prepared and put together. I’ve been supportive of Mayor Sapelli’s budgets and the way he presents his budgets throughout the years … they’re very carefully thought out and well planned. Especially in lieu of the problems we’ve had over the last year with Covid and other things – to keep the cost down and keep the services up – I thought he did extremely well.”
    The budget passed unanimously and no cuts were made.