Nobody wants to jinx it, but both sides involved in negotiations over teacher health care benefits think they just might be making progress.
After officials from the Hamilton County Department of Education last week presented options they think would save the district about $900,000 per year in health care costs, Hamilton County Education Association leaders on Tuesday tweaked some of the options and added their own.
“We’ve had more actual conversations in the last two sessions than we’ve had in the last year and a half,” said Superintendent Jim Scales, a key member of the school district’s negotiating team.
Most of the options presented by the association Tuesday were similar to their original changes, but they would cost employees less.
For instance, the union suggested:
* Increasing the deductible for individual coverage from $400 to $450 instead of $500
* Increasing the out-of-pocket maximum from $1,500 to $1,750 for single coverage and from $4,500 to $4,750 for family coverage
* Going from a two-tiered prescription drug plan to a three-tiered plan, with drugs costing $5, $20 or $30.
Some of the options would be pending potential salary increases, association President Sharon Vandagriff said. At the next session, the school system’s chief financial officer, Tommy Kranz, said he would bring a document showing average pay increase if the district compressed employees’ salaries. That would mean a five-year employee could get paid as a six- or seven-year employee and so on.
Ms. Vandagriff and other union representatives said they are concerned about employees getting some kind of pay raise to offset what likely would be some increased health care costs.
“The options (presented by the district) are the same thing that was up there from the very beginning, which was not approved by the teachers of Hamilton County. They turned it down,” she said. “I don’t imagine they’d accept them without a salary increase.”
HCEA leaders said they also would like to see the school district require employees to do an annual health care verification during open enrollment, encourage annual health risk appraisals, and have an insurance committee complete a quarterly review of the health care plan’s effectiveness.
By the end of the three-hour meeting, Ms. Vandagriff seemed pleased.
“Yay, let’s clap – we had a good meeting today,” she said.
The sides will meet again to continue the discussion on June 21.
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