Health Insurance

I work for a small county in Kansas. The county adopted a policy for new hires after a certain date that they would only pay for the employees insurance and not for the family plan, or employee spouse. They still pay for the family plan, and/or employee spouse policies for people who were employed before the cut off date. Is this legal?

Also, last year for those old employees who had the family plan and/or employee spouse coverages they (the county commisioners) decided not to pay the premium increase and only gave the employees somewhere between half a day and a whole day to decide if they wanted to continue the coverage. The commissioners stated that the employees knew they were considering it, but of course there was no notification other than the weekly commissioner minutes and hearsay. It that legal?

And the latest thing is that in a commissioner meeting in late 2006 or early 2007 it is in the minutes that employees can opt out of their insurance for a pay increase of $1.50/hour, and later in the year the starting wage was increased to $9.00/hour. Recently they have hired new employees that opted out of their insurance for $10.00/hour on more than one occasion. Is this legal? Can they do whatever they please?

Last but not least, I recently went in and asked for a raise. I was told that I am underpaid, but that I was hired for the rate I was hired at. Since I was hired I have moved up a position. I am paid $50 more per month for the 'deputy' pay, but I feel like they're sticking it to me. I asked for the raise because of the rise in the new starting wage, they didn't move existing employees up at all when they increased the new starting wage. Are they legally in the wrong in any way?

[randalljd]

It is not strictly illegal but you could object to the lack of adequate time and if all the employees band together it would seem very likely that those decisions could be reviewed again.