Residents question ‘inappropriately high’ health insurance costs at Benner Township

Two of the three supervisors in Benner Township have health insurance policies that each cost the municipality about $48,000 a year, an amount that has been questioned by residents who also have concerns about the township’s process for offering insurance to supervisors.

Over the past several township meetings, residents have peppered supervisors Larry Lingle and Randy Moyer with questions about their insurance policies, including who is on them, how they were acquired and why the premiums are so high. The questions began at November’s meeting, following a Facebook post from former supervisor Kathy Evey alleging the township’s lack of a policy for supervisor health care insurance participation violates Pennsylvania Second Class Township Code.

Evey, who resigned suddenly in early December after repeatedly voicing transparency and other concerns with the board, did not accept the health insurance the township offers supervisors. Richard Fenush, the new supervisor appointed Dec. 29, told the CDT that he is unsure if he will take it.

Lingle’s policy is $3,863 monthly and covers himself and his wife, while Moyer’s policy is $4,385 monthly and covers himself, his wife and his 19-year-old adopted grandson. Together, both policies cost the township $98,964 annually — an amount that resident Donna Smith, who is a Bellefonte Area School District board member, called “inappropriately high” at Monday’s meeting.

About 15 residents attended Monday’s meeting, with one — former Mountaintop Insurance Company owner Joe Urbanick — confronting the supervisors with claims that they hadn’t followed the necessary procedures to receive the costly coverage.

Like Evey, Urbanick pointed to the lack of a township policy granting supervisors’ enrollment in the township health insurance group plan — a policy he said must be in place prior to enrollment — as a “real problem.”

“The supervisor must submit a letter of request to the board of supervisors at a public meeting. The letter must be acknowledged and would then be recorded in the official minutes record,” he added, noting no letters of request could be found in the official minutes record.

But Lingle and Moyer, along with township secretary Sharon Royer and Solicitor Rodney Beard, denied any wrongdoing. Beard said that the township didn’t have to have an official policy — all the supervisors had to do was submit request letters to board and have them approved a public meeting, then have them recorded in the minutes.

Royer added that the letters requesting the insurance were in the township’s files, but it was not determined Monday whether they had been officially recorded in the minutes. Moyer was elected in 2009 and started his term in 2010, and Lingle was elected in 2019 and started his term in 2020, and each supervisor began receiving insurance benefits upon the start of their terms.

Melissa Melewsky, the media law counsel for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, of which the CDT is a member, agreed that a policy is not required.

“The code does not say there must be a policy in place although for practical purposes, that may be a common practice,” Melewsky said. “At a minimum, the statute requires the ‘submission of a letter requesting participation’ to be put up for discussion and approval at a public meeting. The minutes should reflect whether that happened here, and the letter would be a public record.”

Spring Township Manager Mark Danneker said Monday that his township, which is also a second class township, also operates without an official township insurance policy. He did not immediately respond to how much supervisors’ insurance costs the township.

Policy aside, residents questioned the supervisors Monday on whether they thought that nearly $100,000 annually for health insurance was a fair price for the township’s taxpayers to be fronting.

“At current market value, these packages are between $40,000 and $50,000 per supervisor [per year], which is the equivalent of a good full-time salary for a full-time worker,” said Smith, who likened Moyer’s policy to the yearly salaries of a teacher or municipal police officer. “That’s why it hurts for people like us who don’t reap the same benefits as you guys do.”

Smith and other residents at the meeting asked the two supervisors why they weren’t enrolled in Medicare instead, since they are both over the age of 65.

Lingle and Moyer only said that they were not required to enroll in Medicare and showed no indications of doing so in the future.

“The explanation to this whole situation is that the second class township codes allows [township coverage of supervisors’ health insurance], and we do it, so there it is,” Moyer said. “If you don’t like a township that provides health care, maybe you should go to one that doesn’t have it, and that’s that simple.”

Smith offered some recommendations on what could be done to alleviate concerns, including presenting and retroactively approving Lingle and Moyer’s request letters at a public meeting for clarity. She also suggested making the request letter a yearly mandate as opposed to a one-time submission, recalibrating the township’s insurance figures, asking that only the supervisors and not their dependents take the coverage, and making an official township insurance policy to refer to in case this topic came up again.

Of those suggestions, the supervisors seemed interested about the creation of an official township policy, which Beard said was “best practice,” though no timeline was indicated.

This story was originally published January 7, 2026 at 1:27 PM.