Health care deductibles double, triple for school district staff

SARASOTA — Sarasota County Schools employees, including teachers, will now officially be expected to pay double, possibly triple, their annual average deductibles for health care.

At Tuesday's School Board meeting, officials voted to approve next year's employee health insurance plan, which lowers district costs by 8.3% while raising costs for employees.

District staff will pay three times higher than what they normally pay for an individual's annual deductible and two times higher than the present deductible.

Other deductibles will also increase between $1,000 to $2,000, depending on the type of plan, meaning families would be faced paying thousands more than usual for a bad medical year.

Families will start paying possibly thousands in extra costs, starting in July, including surcharges for smokers and having spouses on their plan who had other options for coverage.

No elected officials were happy to support the surge in price but their reasons for why the district lacks funding for staff health care were not so unanimous.

Board member Tom Edwards said the district, School Board and teacher's union tried to protect staff benefits but blamed unchecked school vouchers and low per-student funding for it falling through.

In recent months, the district has raised concern for its inflated spending on employee health care and has looked at ways to save while still offering insurance to staff.

Back in February, the district reopened negotiations with Sarasota Classified/Teachers Association teachers union over its urgent financial concerns for an "unbalanced budget" and an increase in health insurance costs.

Board member Robyn Marinelli said the cost of benefits has been an issue long before charter schools or vouchers were a thing.

Marinelli said having her husband on her plan when she worked for the district more than a decade ago became unattainable for her.

"This is not something that just happened," she said.

While educators didn't join the field to "get wealthy," said Board member Karen Rose, she was "reluctant" to support the inflated rates and hopes something of equal value is obtained for the district.

Board member Liz Barker said the problem starts at the state level and needs to improve before fully-paid health care plans start disappearing, like in other districts.

"To me, having that conversation should be a real eye-opener for us as a state," Barker said."What are our values? Who do we value? And I certainly hope it's our educators."