County Administrator, David Smith indicated that he was very pleased with the Board's support, and said "Today's vote was an important step toward Maricopa County's long term strategy to ensure that employees have access to high quality health coverage and choices while restraining the cost increases that have hit other local employers so hard."  Smith was also grateful to the substantial number of people all over County government that contributed to the design, solicitation, evaluation, and negotiation of the Mariplan health benefits package for 2003.

The new benefits package will take effect on January 1, 2003. Open enrollment for current employees is expected to begin October 15th and run through November 2nd.