NATCHEZ — The Adams County Board of Supervisors voted Wednesday to keep its existing health care plan, but to require all employees to attend mandatory educational and health and wellness workshops.

The supervisors in recent weeks have expressed concern about the costs of employee health care benefits and heard proposals from several different insurance providers when their policy recently came up for renewal.

County Administrator Joe Murray said the different proposals submitted through the bid process would not help the county save any substantial amount of money. The supervisors voted to keep their self-insured plan with Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Supervisor Mike Lazarus said the county can’t control who is going to get cancer or fall down a set of steps, but they can require some preventative measures for health plan participation.

“They have got to get their health screenings,” Lazarus said. “When you wear a seat belt, it’s not for the other guy, it’s for you.”

Health care costs have fluctuated between approximately $1.7 million and $1.9 million for the last six years, Murray said.

“Can you help yourself through education to knock off a couple of hundred thousand (dollars)? Well yeah,” Murray said.

While some preventative measures can be taken, ultimately trying to guess health care costs is an unknown, Supervisors’ President Darryl Grennell said.

“The human body is a walking time bomb in terms of catastrophic illness,” Grennell said. “We know that historically, there are unknowns when it comes to health care, when it comes to catastrophic illnesses.”

Supervisor Angela Hutchins said the board has in the past required employees to attend educational workshops, but many of the employees who attended those have since left their jobs and been replaced.

In other news, the supervisors gave Southwest Planning and Development District Planner Allen Laird the go ahead to start an application for a community development block grant for the road program.

Grennell said CDBG money is rarely allocated for asphalt programs, and that for roads to qualify they would have to meet a cost-benefit formula that includes a survey of the median income of the area it would serve.

“(The road selected) can’t be 2 miles of road and only (serve) four people,” Laird said.

If the county is approved for the grant, which can be as much as $600,000, it may require as much as a 100-percent match, Laird said.

Grennell said the county would have to borrow the money for the match if it was approved for the grant. Applying for the grant makes sense if the roads they submit for consideration are going to have to be fixed in the next couple of years anyway, Murray said.

Chancery Clerk Tommy O’Beirne said the county will have to refinance a $2.4 million bond in the coming year, and it is possible the match funds could be gained through the refinancing process.

The county was approved for a similar grant in the past, but the sitting board at that time voted the measure down rather than make the match, Grennell said.

The supervisors told Laird they would select two roads from each of their districts for consideration.