State said it was OK

The question — why Campbell County was out of compliance with the state for years regarding its health insurance offerings to employees — may have a very simple answer: because the state said at one time that what the county was doing was OK.

Under state law, school employees, both certified and non-certified, need to be offered the same health insurance plan.

School board attorney Dail Cantrell said a state law change went into effect on July 1, 2015, disallowing offering some school employees one health insurance plan and others, another.

However, the state discovered last year that, in Campbell County, certified employees were enrolled in the state local education plan, while the school system's full-time non-certified or classified employees — who are, in essence, school employees who are not teachers, nurses, administrators or central office staff — were enrolled in the county's health insurance plan.

The county ended up moving its non-certified employees to the state local education plan well before the state's deadline of the end of the year to come into compliance.

But the question of Campbell County's previously split school health insurance offerings and how they meshed with state law wasn't an issue that was missed or ignored by the county in the past.

Emails obtained by the LaFollette Press show that the county and state had specifically and explicitly discussed the matter before the legal change's implementation, back in 2014.

In October of last year, county finance director Jeff Marlow sent county attorney Joe Coker a timeline regarding the health insurance offerings for Campbell County school system employees dating back to 2011.

"In follow up to our telephone conversation from yesterday regarding the statutory history of TCA 8-27-301 et seq and how these statutory provisions relate to the actions of the Board of Education in their efforts to provide their classified/non-certified employees with the ability to participate in the county's insurance plan, please find below a timeline summarizing these events," Marlow wrote to Coker. "Prior to April 2011 all participating employees of the Board of Education were enrolled in the state medical insurance plan and all participating employees of the county were enrolled in the county medical insurance plan. Additionally, prior to April 2011 the certified employees of the Board of Education had access to a retiree medical insurance program through the state plan and the employees of the county, other than the classified/non-certified employees of the Board of Education, had access to a retiree medical insurance program through the county plan. In order to address the absence of a retiree medical insurance program for their classified/non-certified employees the Board of Education adopted a resolution on April 12, 2011, copy attached, requesting that the County Commission allow their classified/non-certified employees to be provided with the option to leave the state plan and begin participation in the county plan. In regards to statutory provisions it appears that prior to the enactment of TCA 8-27-302(e) in 2015 there was not a statutory provision requiring that all employees of a LEA be enrolled in either the state insurance plan or a local insurance plan without the ability of a segment of the LEA personnel to be enrolled in the state plan while another segment of the LEA personnel was enrolled in a local plan. However, notwithstanding the absence of specific statutory language prohibiting different segments of LEA personnel from participating in different insurance plans prior to the enactment of TCA 8-27-302(e), the State Insurance Administration changed the language in their MOU agreements with LEAs in 2014 to achieve this same result in advance of the change in statutes that occurred in 2015."

Indeed, the county finance office and the state had discussed this change in 2014.

In a letter dated April 24, 2014, Marlow wrote to Seannalyn Brandmeir of Benefits Administration with the state.

"This is to address Item 9 in Section 1A-Responsibilities of the LEA in the April 2014 version of the Memorandum of Understanding executed between Benefits Administration and its participating local education agencies," Marlow wrote to Brandmeir. "Item 9 states: 'A LEA participating in the Local Education Plan may not offer any other health plan to individuals eligible for the health plan sponsored through the state group insurance program.' The Campbell County Board of Education no longer offers the state plan to its support staff (classified) personnel. Due to action taken by our agency, these employees are ineligible for the state-sponsored health insurance plan."

Marlow's letter referenced a school board-passed resolution in April 2011 that created an early retiree medical insurance program for classified employees. One of the signatures on the resolution was then-interim director of schools Sharon Ridenour's, who now serves as school board chair. The county commission passed a resolution to provide funding, and both resolutions were effective July 1, 2011.

"At this time, the only Campbell County Board of Education personnel participating in the state health plan are grandfathered support staff (classified) and certified teachers," Marlow wrote. "Going forward from July 1, 2011, only Campbell County certified teachers are offered coverage on the state health plan."

An email from Karen Henegar, the general ledger/payroll/benefits supervisor with the Campbell County Department of Finance, dated April 16, 2014, was sent to Sherry Buchanan, and Marlow and Pat Ward were copied on the email.

The email read: "Ms. Buchanan: I have been advised that the MOU as presently configured cannot be signed. Section 1A Item 9 states LEA participating in the Local Education Plan may not offer any other health plan to individuals eligible for the health plan sponsored through the state group insurance plan. The classified employees of the Campbell County BOE are enrolled in the county health plan so that they can participate in the retiree medical insurance program. As such, the Campbell County BOE can only agree to these terms for certified (licensed professional) employees. Therefore, on behalf of the Campbell County Board of Education, I request that the MOU be revised accordingly. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Karen."

Then came the piece of correspondence that perhaps is the reason why Campbell County's school health insurance offerings stayed the way they were for nearly a decade after.

In an email the next day from Seannalyn Brandmeir to Henegar, Brandmeir wrote, "I wanted to follow up with you regarding our telephone conversation. The MOU applies to the Local Education Plan and only the employees who are eligible. It sounds like from our conversation that your certified teachers are the only ones eligible for the plan. In that scenario, you could not offer another comprehensive medical plan and our Local Education Plan to those certified teachers. If you have other employees who are not eligible for the Local Education Plan, they would not be impacted by this."

Marlow described to Coker how the county finance office interpreted this e-mail from Brandmeir.

"After discussions between employees of the Finance Office and employees of State Insurance Administration regarding the potential conflict between the insurance program being offered by the Board of Education and the language in Section 9 of the 2014 MOU, State Insurance Administration employee Seannalyn Brandmeir advised Payroll Supervisor Karen Henegar via an April 17, 2014 email that since the BOE classified/non-certified employees were no longer being provided the opportunity to enroll in the state plan and since the certified employees were only being offered participation in the state plan, the insurance program being offered by the Board of Education to its two groups of employees did not result in a conflict with the language in Section 9 of the proposed April 2014 MOU," Marlow wrote to Coker.

And this further informed the county's take on the matter in 2019.

"I can't recall being made aware of the language in TCA 8-27-302(e) following its enactment in 2015, but given that the language in Section 9 of the April 2014 MOU is very similar to the language in TCA 8-27-302(e) with the intent of the language from both the statute and the MOU being the same, if I had become aware of the language in TCA 8-27-302(e) sometime after its enactment in 2015, I would have concluded that the determination from State Insurance Administration employee Seannalyn Brandmeir regarding Section 9 of the April 2014 MOU was still applicable such that the process of enrolling the BOE classified/non-certified employees in the county plan while the teachers were enrolled in the state plan was not in conflict with state policy and/or state law so long as the teachers were not offered participation in the county plan," Marlow wrote to Coker. "This same logic was relied on when the 2019 MOU, copy attached, was signed in March 2019 by Pat Ward, Jennifer Fields and me without raising additional concerns to State Insurance Administration since this matter had previously been brought to the attention of State Insurance Administration in 2014 and State Insurance Administration had determined that the process being used by the Board of Education was compliant with state policy. If Pat Ward or I had thought the previous determination by State Insurance Administration employee Seannalyn Brandmeir in 2014 was no longer effective, or that the determination made by Ms. Brandmeir was erroneous, the language regarding the prohibition against offering an alternative health plan contained in the 2019 MOU would have yet again been brought to the attention of State Insurance Administration before the 2019 MOU would have been signed in the same way this was brought to the attention of State Insurance Administration before the 2014 MOU was signed."

Pat Ward, payroll/benefits assistant manager with the county finance office, emailed Brandmeir on April 25, 2014. Ward wrote: "Please find attached a copy of the MOU signed by Campbell County's director of finance, as well as a letter of clarification addressing Item 9 in Section 1A-Responsibilities of the LEA of the MOU. The originals will be mailed today, April 25. After reviewing the enclosed, if you have any questions, please call me."

Brandmeir replied to Ward in an email on April 29, 2014: "Thank you Pat. I will put this information with the signed MOU. All of this is filed in the agency's file we have on hand at Benefits Administration."

Then the state discovered in 2022 that Campbell County was out of compliance.

"Upon receiving the above referenced July 24, 2022 email from State Insurance Administration Executive Director Laurie Lee, Director of Schools Jennifer Fields and Board of Education Chairman Johnny Byrge were included in all future email exchanges with Ms. Lee to ensure that the Board of Education was fully aware of the potential requirement to remove the BOE classified/non-certified employees from the county plan and enroll these employees in the state plan, and so that the Board of Education could take any actions it felt appropriate in the form of contacting state representatives to appeal the decision to remove the classified employees from the county plan, and/or to request a delay in the transition from an effective date of January 1, 2023 to an effective date of January 1, 2024 so that the Board of Education could have time to adequately notify the affected employees and lessen the potential confusion, misinformation and mistrust that otherwise could and likely would result from a shortened notification and reaction period," Marlow wrote to Coker.

Marlow's intent may have been to inform the school board as a whole, but not all school board members were made aware of the situation for weeks afterward.

In an email from Marlow to Lee, dated July 25, Marlow wrote in part: "Director Fields and Board of Education Chairman Johnny Bruce are carbon copied on this email and if I were in their shoes I would get in touch with the State Representative Dennis Powers and State Senator Ken Yager as fast as possible to seek a change in the state law you reference in your below email to allow LEAs to offer their support staff the ability to participate in a locally sponsored health plan as an alternative to participating in the state plan so long as the locally sponsored health plan provides at least 90% of the same benefit structure as the state plan, and/or change state law to allow LEA support staff the ability to participate in the state's retiree medical insurance program currently available to LEA licensed employees and to all other direct employees of the state of Tennessee."

In particular, Ridenour was contacted about the situation the day of a State Local Education Insurance Committee meeting on Sept. 22.

"Prior to sending Ms. Lee a follow-up email response on August 4, 2022, I provided a draft version of such email to Director of Schools Jennifer Fields on August 2, 2022 for her review and to see if she wanted to make any changes in the language of the email requesting a delay in the transition of the BOE classified/non-certified employees from the county plan to the state plan," Marlow wrote to Coker. "Director Fields provided me with a response email on August 2, 2022, copy attached, informing me that she had no recommended changes to the proposed language of the email to be sent to Ms. Lee. Director Fields further thanked me for my efforts to delay the conversion of the BOE classified/non-certified employees from the county plan to the state plan. Beginning with the August 2, 2022 email to Ms. Lee, I expanded the number of parties carbon copied on the emails with Ms. Lee to include County Commission Chairman Johnny Bruce and Insurance & Personnel Committee Chairman Rusty Orick to ensure that the applicable representatives of the County Commission, in addition to the applicable representatives of the Board of Education, were aware of the potential requirement to transition the BOE classified/non-certified employees from the county plan to the state plan with an effective date of January 1, 2023."

Then came the Sept. 22 meeting with the state, in which the state committee voted to deny Marlow's request, which was presented as a request from the school board.

On Sept. 6, Marlow wrote to State Finance and Administration Commissioner Jim Bryson. He summarized the communication thus far since the state first contacted the county in July, and Marlow ended the email thusly: "Please accept this email as an official request from Campbell County for the Local Education Insurance Committee to place on the agenda for their upcoming September 22, 2022 meeting a revision to the current policy whereby LEAs are authorized to provide medical insurance coverage to licensed personnel through the state plan and provide medical insurance coverage to support staff through the county plan, so long as the county plan is determined to meet the equivalency comparison to the state plan as performed by the state's actuarial consulting firm. Thank you for your consideration of this request as such request is in the best interest of the employees of Campbell County and the county as a whole."

Copied on the email were, among others, Director of Schools Jennifer Fields, school board member Johnny Byrge, County Attorney Joe Coker and County Commissioners Johnny Bruce and Rusty Orick.

On Sept. 22, during the state committee meeting, Jennifer White, with the Tennessee School Boards Association, said she reached out to the chair of the Campbell County school board, which would be Sharon Ridenour by that point, and White said that the school board doesn't support higher premiums.

"They request that everyone to be on the same plan to have the cost savings and to avoid any potential liability by treating employees differently," White said.

Ridenour said she was contacted by White the same day as the meeting in Nashville and did advise her in this manner.

"I felt that the school board would not want our people to be paying higher premiums," Ridenour said. "That doesn't make sense."

This was counter to Marlow's request to get an exemption and keep things the same.

"Ms. Lee made a presentation to the committee in opposition to these requests to include a comparison of the state plan premiums to the county plan premiums," Marlow wrote to Coker. "I was surprised by Ms. Lee's presentation to the committee since in our previous communications she made no mention of her intent to make such a presentation. If Ms. Lee had shared her plan to present a comparison of the state plan premiums to the county plan premiums I would have let her know that the premiums for the county plan had always been greater than the state plan premiums from the time the Board of Education decided to offer the county plan to the BOE classified/non-certified employees in 2011, copy attached. The fact that the county plan premiums were greater than the state plan premiums was known to the Board of Education, the County Commission and the BOE classified/non-certified employees which is one of the reasons these employees were offered the option to participate in the county plan in 2011 but were not required to switch to the county plan."