By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
The Burlington Area School District School Board approved changes to the district’s health insurance policy Monday night, eliminating one option and changing two others.
By a 6-1 vote, the School Board voted to go with the WEA Trust plan. That plan offers two different high-deductible, health savings account options – a $3,000 single/$6,000 family in-network deductible at no cost to employees, and a $1,500/$3,000 in-network deductible plan that would have employees paying $47 a month for the single rate and $129 a month for the family rate.
Eliminated from consideration is the PPO plan, which kept deductibles at $250 for single coverage and $500 for family.
The lone dissenting vote Monday night was from Phil Ketterhagen, who argued the PPO plan wasn’t resulting in major losses for the district. He wanted to keep the PPO plan to provide a third option to employees.
Ketterhagen said Tuesday after looking at the “experience” for the district for the past year – the rating factor based on claims paid out – that the PPO plan “was not eating our lunch,” he said.
At the meeting Monday night, Ketterhagen suggested the district was saving money because of positions eliminated by attrition, and keeping the option would provide another choice for the district.
Board member Larry Anderson, meanwhile, said keeping the PPO plan would be “delaying the inevitable,” given the district is switching from the Wisconsin Group Health Trust to the WEA Trust to avoid a 25 percent rate hike this year.
The savings is likely to be one year only, leaving the district facing another cost increase next spring. With the district saving a little more than $145,000 this year, Anderson felt taking the savings for a year would be a good idea.
School Board Member Jim Bousman said education would be key in getting employees to understand the situation with the change from the PPO plan to the HSA plans.
According to numbers compiled by the district, when factoring in premiums paid in 2014-15 and office and prescription co-pays, the actual cost to employees changes only slightly. If PPO plan members go with the $1,500/$3,000 deductible plan, costs increase $464 per year for a single plan, and only $275 a year for the family plan – which includes paying the premium upgrade from the $3,000/$6,000 HSA option.
Board OKs refinancing
In a separate matter the School Board unanimously approved resolutions to refinance $9.9 million in general obligation refunding bonds and $2.5 million in taxable general obligation refunding bonds to take advantage of lower interest rates.
Lisa Voisin from Baird and Associates made the presentation to the board last week. With the district having an A+ bond rating, she expects the district to see between 3 and 8 percent in savings by refinancing.
The resolutions set the minimum amount of savings the district expects – or else the refinancing will not happen.
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