Health costs may double for school district

During her initial budget workshop in December, Superintendent of Schools Patricia Charles predicted a 12 percent increase in health insurance costs for classified employees. Since then, this number has doubled and will require an additional expense of $1.1 million, which could lead to potential cuts to proposed teacher and athletic positions throughout the school system, officials said.

This 26.52 percent increase in health insurance is due to the prescription costs associated with classified employees, Lynda MacPherson, manager of financial operations, said during Tuesday night’s Board of Education meeting.

School workers such as managers, secretaries or custodians are considered classified employ-

ees, whereas the administration, teaching and paraprofessional staff are considered certified.

Unlike classified employees, health insurance costs for certified staff members will only increase by 5.1 percent for the 2016-17 calendar year, MacPherson said.

Currently, all school employees use Express Scripts to fill their prescriptions. In order to cut costs, employees now receive a 90-day supply, rather than 30-days. However, the rise in classified health insurance costs is due to “prescriptions on the plan that were more expensive,” MacPherson said.

During the initial budget presentation Dec. 15, MacPherson said she had not yet received the figures for the classified health insurance group, which lead to the discrepancy in the budget.

“We had not received the numbers for the classified health insurance up until the other day. We were shocked about the numbers,” MacPherson said.

According to the 2015-16 school budget, the classified health insurance totaled $4.3 million — a $69,000 decrease from the previous year.

This year, Charles is proposing a school budget that calls for a 7.5 percent increase over the current year. If Charles’ expenditure is approved by the Common Council, it will increase the current year’s budget from $78.1 million to $83.7 million.

Her proposed budget includes hiring new staff members and educators such as an education technology coach, a social worker at the preschool level, new custodians for Macdonough School and Bielefield Elementary School and assistant athletic coaches at Woodrow Wilson Middle School.

Due to the rising health insurance costs, Charles said these positions are ones the board will consider eliminating in order to maintain the 7.5 percent proposed increase.

“What I did was provide some additional things that we would have to cut in order to get to the same point. All of the things are great things for our school system. Do I want to see them go? No,” Charles said.

But because cuts have been made to the school system’s budget in the past, Charles said these positions are needed in order to enhance the education students receive and to allow the buildings to operate properly.

“These are new things in the budget. Are they needed? Yes, they are needed,” Charles said.

The Board of Education will continue to modify the proposed school budget. The panel has until the first week in March to present its final proposal to the Common Council. The board is scheduled to meet next on Feb. 23.