WISE — Health insurance again dominated discussion by the Wise County School Board on Tuesday as the school division comes to grips with a projected $3.15 million budget shortfall for next fiscal year.
A public hearing on the budget scheduled before the board’s regular monthly session focused entirely on the school division’s choices regarding health insurance. Essentially the board is looking at curtailing some benefits — largely a matter of an increase in the deductible from the current $250 to $500, and potential hikes in the employee share of premiums — while seeking to save up to $1.4 million over the current Key Advantage 250 plan.
Renewal for what the school division now offers employees would be $600,000, and going a different route could save an additional $800,000. The administration under Schools Superintendent Jeff Perry is recommending the board consider either a fully insured Key 500 plan or self-insured 500 plan.
There would be some out of pocket increases for employees with the fully insured option, and none, or very little, with the self-insured option. For example, an employee now seeing a $93 a month deduction from a paycheck as an insurance might see that go up to $114 a month under the fully insured Key 500 route.
As he did during Monday’s workshop session that also primarily dealt with health insurance, Perry emphasized those numbers are projections for the time being and the actual rates won’t be known until the board chooses an option.
Mark Hutchinson said three teachers he spoke with who had familiarity with the self-insured option said they didn’t like it much. Perry said, “Some of these (other) school divisions have just picked extremely poor program elements” and Wise County seeks to provide the best health coverage possible at the best cost available.
A number of insurers have responded to the board’s request for proposals (RFP’s) and those are generally kept confidential while an insurance consultant helps negotiate packages. However, in an unusual move on Tuesday, one of those respondents — an area insurance firm — made a sales pitch before the board.
Two representatives of South-West Insurance Agency Inc., based in Big Stone Gap, actually made the same pitch twice, once during the public hearing on the budget and again during the regular session. The company claimed to have a deal in the works to save the school division $1.5 million and save school division employees out of pocket costs — or even lower those payroll deductions — to boot.
Betty Cornett of Big Stone Gap made a pitch of her own for the hometown team, prompting Chairman Nolan Kilgore to gently intervene in order to ask Board Attorney Scott Mullins if discussion of specific RFP respondents ventured into legally questionable territory.
Cornett said she didn’t think she “crossed the line” and Mullins said while things were “a little unusual” he would be more comfortable if the discussion ended right there.
In any event, the board scheduled another public hearing, this time leading to a vote on next fiscal year’s budget, for 6 p.m. on April 23.
The board will also go into a closed session during that public hearing to discuss the insurance options and assess the merits of all the RFP respondents and not just the one, leading to a vote on that issue before voting on the budget.