Board of Education has plan to save district $1.5 million [The Chronicle, Willimantic, Conn.]

Jan. 7—WILLIMANTIC — The board of education is currently looking into a state health insurance plan estimated to save the district $1.5 million next fiscal year.

The board of education voted 7 to 0 during their meeting Wednesday to explore the state health insurance plan further.

"I wish we had done this in 2012, instead of going into the self- insurance plan," Windham Board of Education Chairwoman Lynne Ide said. "It's caused us a lot of headaches."

The town and school board employees are on the same self-insurance plan.

The insurance broker for the two groups is Lockton.

Under a self- insurance plan, the employee collects premiums from enrollees and takes on the responsibility of paying employees' and dependants' medical claims.

The claims are paid through a joint health insurance fund. During the board meeting on Wednesday, employees from Brown & Brown in Rocky Hill presented a comparison of the district's current insurance plan and the state plan.

Calculations were made for next year using an estimated 466 school board employees According to Brown and Brown, if the district joined the state health insurance plan for the upcoming fiscal year, there would be an estimated expense to the district of $11.5 million, an estimated gross savings of about $1.5 million from the current plan.

However, those estimates do not factor in the employees' cost shares.

Chuck Petruccione, who works for Brown & Brown, said if the board ended its current plan on June 30 and started with the state plan on July 1, the district would have hundreds of thousands of dollars in claim liability "trickle into next year."

"Your liability will continue for several months if you end that plan on June 30," he said.

According to Brown & Brown employees, while the state plan is the best in terms of benefits, at this point, it is not the best plan in terms of financial viability.

Ide said school officials have heard complaints from employees about high-deductible plans. She said while the district can't compete with salaries offered by other school districts, they can perhaps offer a better health insurance plan.

"We see it as something that could potentially help

BOE, Page 4

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