Live updates: School board considering changes to teacher health benefits
By Tim Omarzu, Chattanooga Times Free Press, Tenn. | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
Earlier report:
In 33 years of teaching,
Oliver shared her pain and upset over proposed cuts to
"What is this saying to them? You are not important, you are not valued, you will take what is given to you," Oliver, an assistant principal at
The board will weigh three options at its meeting tonight:
Under option one, school employees will pay
Under option two, spouses will be denied school insurance -- provided the spouses can get insurance through their nonschool job -- and everyone's prescription co-pays would increase. Both options would save the district an estimated
The third option, a high-deductible plan with a pre-tax health savings account, could save the district as much as
"I've had a lot of angst about it, having been a teacher,"
Horn, who represents the
"I'm thinking that option one may be my preferred option," Horn said. "I'm basing that on the information that I've gotten from the teachers in my district."
Option one would affect the fewest employees, School Superintendent
The school district's health insurance covers about 10,000 people, Smith said, when spouses and children are added in.
"Until this year, we've had to raise health insurance premiums twice in the past 12 years," he said.
Employees' monthly premiums went from
The district spends
"These big-deductible plans, I think that's a violation of state law," Hughes said. "Our plan has to be at least as good as the state insurance plan."
This will mark the first time since 1978 that the school district has changed employees' health insurance plans outside of a collective bargaining agreement.
"This came pretty much out of nowhere," Hughes said of the proposed cuts.
Under statewide changes adopted in 2011 in
Even without a contract, teachers should have a place at the negotiation table to "collaboratively conference," Hughes said, under the state law that did away with teachers' collective bargaining rights.
Smith said the district has to decide in time for employees to participate in an open enrollment period in October. Teachers didn't have a representative on the committee considering cuts, because there's no contract.
"There's no union right now," he said. "That's the problem. Who do you include?"
Horn said board members weren't on the committee of four school administrators and the district's consultant, Adams, that analyzed ways to cut health care costs. Too many people on the committee would have made it unwieldy, she said.
"We just have to finalize this," Horn said. "And I'm hoping we can do it."
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