Business
& AGLIFE
The Observer & Baker City Herald
B
Thursday, November 10, 2022
LIZ
WESTON
ASK LIZ
What are
employee
benefits
worth?
B
enefits make up more
than 30% of the typical
compensation package,
but companies aren’t always
clear about how much value
they add for employees. Know-
ing what benefits are worth can
help you evaluate job offers or
better negotiate your next raise.
When reviewing your em-
ployer’s current offerings, start
by checking your pay stub for
health insurance contributions.
Next, evaluate your retirement
plan and company match. Fi-
nally, consider other benefits
like dental insurance, disabil-
ity insurance and tuition assis-
tance. After you’ve reviewed
your benefits, weigh what
they’re worth to you and your
personal situation.
Benefits make up more than
30% of the typical job’s com-
pensation, according to the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics. But
figuring out what your benefits
are worth isn’t always easy.
You may need to do a little
digging to find how much your
employer contributes toward
health insurance, retirement
plans and other perks. Some
benefits also have nonmonetary
value, and people can value the
same benefits in different ways.
For example, people with
health conditions are likely to
appreciate guaranteed access to
disability or life insurance that
could be hard to get or pro-
hibitively expensive otherwise.
Someone with student loans
may value a program to help
with education debt far more
than someone without student
loan debt.
Now that open enrollment
season is upon us again, it’s a
great time to review your em-
ployer’s current offerings. Un-
derstanding what your benefits
are worth could renew your
commitment to your current
job — or make you realize it’s
time to seek out a better deal.
If you’re thinking of becoming
self-employed, you can better
understand how much more
you’ll need to earn to replace
your current benefits.
Here are some of the most
common benefits, along with
typical employer contribution
amounts, according to Mercer,
an employee benefits consul-
tant.
Health insurance:
$5,000 to $20,000
Employer-provided health
insurance plans range from
bare bones to fairly extravagant.
On average, though, employ-
ers paid 83% of the $7,739 pre-
mium last year for single cov-
erage and 73% of the $22,221
premium for family coverage,
according to KFF, a health in-
surance research organization.
You can find what both you
and your employer paid for
your health insurance last year
on your 2021 W-2, says Paul
Fronstin, director of health ben-
efits research at the Employee
Benefit Research Institute, or
EBRI. The annual figure is of-
ten reported using a “DD” code.
Your employer also may
break out its contribution on
your pay stub. A pay stub is a
document that provides the de-
tails of your gross and after-tax
pay along with various deduc-
tions. You often can access your
pay stub through your compa-
ny’s online payroll system; ask
your human resources depart-
ment for details.
Premiums are just one factor
in evaluating your health care
coverage, of course. Deduct-
ibles, co-pays and provider net-
works matter as well. Having
access to different types of plans
can make open enrollment
more confusing, but it also can
help you tailor your coverage to
your situation.
See Weston / B2
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
James and Emilia Barnum pose outside their new Big Tooth Family Dentistry in Wallowa on Thursday, Nov. 3, 2022. The Barnums’ oldest son designed the office’s logo.
Filling a need
James Barnum brings dental care to Wallowa with Big Tooth Family Dentistry
BY BILL BRADSHAW • Wallowa County Chieftain
W
ALLOWA — It’s no circus, but Wallowa has a dentist of its own now that James Barnum opened shop downtown Monday, Sept.
26, in Big Tooth Family Dentistry.
“No, we’re not part of the circus,” said James, in a
joking reference to his distant relative P.T. Barnum,
the famous American showman of the 19th cen-
tury.
This Barnum is a general dentist who provides
cleanings, advanced cleanings, composite fillings,
crowns, bridges and dentures. He’s planning to be-
gin doing denture realigns, where he re-bases a den-
ture to give it a better fit.
But that’s hardly ev-
ident now, since she
worked really hard to
get rid of her Romanian
accent.
“Now when I see
people with an accent,
I think, ‘Oh man, it’s
nice’ (not to have one),”
she said. “It was a teenage
The Barnums
thing, wanting to fit in. It
Wallowa’s new dentist moved to Wallowa County was pretty life-changing for
with his wife, Emilia, and their five children. They
me. I was pretty shy and timid.”
came from Milwaukie, a Portland suburb, where
The couple’s five children
they operated a dental practice
range in age
for 12 years and she worked for a “We like taking the time to get to from 4-15.
corporate pharmacy.
know people. That’s the beauty They ho-
meschool
They first came to visit and
of a small community, you get the kids,
then decided to make the move
14 months ago.
to know them by name and run who are
also able to
“We visited here and the peo-
into them at the grocery store take part in
ple here are so friendly,” Emilia
said. “We saw there wasn’t a
sports pro-
and whatever.”
grams at Wal-
dental office here and the doors
— Emilia Barnum, pharmacist at
lowa schools.
seemed to just open.”
Big Tooth Family Dentistry
Their oldest son
Both adult Barnums got their
is on the high school
respective degrees at Oregon
Health & Science University. James earned a doctor basketball team.
of medicine in dentistry. He said it’s a little different
The office
than the usual DDS in that its focus is on whole-
Located right downtown, Barnum’s office is
body health.
housed in a building built in 1890 that’s gone
Emilia earned her degree in pharmacology.
through several incarnations.
James is a native Oregonian, but Emilia has a
The building has “a fairly rich and weird history,”
different tale to tell. She was born in Romania and
he said.
came to the U.S. with her parents at age 10.
“It’s housed almost everything under the sun,”
“I spoke zero English,” she said.
Emilia said, adding a tie
to her profession. “One of
the last things was a phar-
macy.”
The building was one of
the few that didn’t lose all
its windows during the di-
sastrous Aug. 11 hailstorm
that pummeled Wallowa.
However, the Barnums did
have to replace the roof.
The practice
So far, the dentistry is at-
tracting customers locally. He
said they’re getting calls from
Union and Umatilla counties,
but they are primarily inter-
ested in keeping their clientele
limited to Wallowa County.
“We want to keep it on a
local level,” Emilia said.
James agreed.
“We’ve been saying no,” he
said. “We want to just stay loyal to this
little community.”
Emilia works alongside James — when
she’s not homeschooling the kids — putting her
knowledge as a pharmacist to work.
“She comes in really handy when it comes time
to talk medical histories and medications with pa-
tients,” he said.
James said he hopes to bring to Wallowa dental
services that residents have had to leave town for in
the past.
See Dentistry / B2
Oregon business taxes middle of the pack
BY MIKE ROGOWAY
The Oregonian
SALEM — Oregon’s business taxes,
long among the nation’s lowest, have
risen considerably over the past few
years and now place the state near the
middle of the pack, according to a
prominent annual survey.
The Tax Foundation is a think tank
that ranks state tax policies each year.
The organization advocates for lower
taxes and publishes its ranking as part
of its campaign to push for more busi-
ness-friendly tax policies, so it oper-
ates with a clear agenda.
Because it applies a consistent
methodology across states, though,
and because the Tax Foundation has
published its results for many years,
its ranking is a widely watched ba-
rometer of how states measure up
against one another.
Oregon ranks No. 24 in the Tax
Foundation’s most recent tally, down
two places from last year’s survey.
Among neighboring states, that puts
Oregon roughly on par with Wash-
ington (No. 28), well ahead of Califor-
nia (No. 48), and behind Idaho (No.
15).
As recently as 2019 Oregon ranked
eighth. The state’s favorable ranking
reflected the absence of a sales tax, a
rare thing in the United States and a
major boon to businesses.
So what’s changed?
Oregon’s ranking fell in large part
because of the state’s new corporate
activity tax, which the Legislature ap-
proved in 2019 to fund education and
early childhood programs. It gener-
ates more than $1 billion a year by
taxing companies’ gross revenues.
Employers are also paying more for
Oregon’s new paid family and medical
leave program.
The Tax Foundation notes a suc-
cession of new taxes in the Portland
area, the state’s population and com-
merce center. Those pay for homeless
services, clean energy programs and
other government functions. And the
organization says tax cuts in other
states reduced Oregon’s relative plac-
ing.
Curiously, the Tax Foundation
docks Oregon for reforms to its un-
employment insurance taxes. The
foundation reduced the state’s ranking
in that category in 2021 and 2022 and
now ranks Oregon No. 36.
Oregon businesses, though,
roundly hailed the reforms, passed
by lawmakers last year with resound-
ing bipartisan support. The state es-
timates they will save businesses $2.4
billion over 10 years.
The Tax Foundation didn’t respond
to questions last year or this year
about its methodology, but the un-
employment taxes don’t appear to be
among the leading factors in Oregon’s
falling ranking.
Oregon is beginning the process of
taking a broad look at its tax climate.
Tax breaks created for factories in
the 1980s now go overwhelmingly to
wealthy tech companies for data cen-
ters and warehouses. In their upcom-
ing session next winter, lawmakers
plan to consider reforms that could
reduce the scope of those incentives.
Additionally, state leaders plan to
examine the competitiveness of its
tax incentives and business climate
in hopes of luring chipmakers to
build billions of dollars in new fac-
tories in Oregon. Some legislators
and gubernatorial candidates want
to take the opportunity for a broader
assessment of the state’s business
climate.