By Gary Ogle
gogle@wbcowqel.com
Call it Obamacare, call it the Affordable Healthcare Act. School administrators across the country are calling it potentially devastating to their district’s budgets.
“There are all sorts of hidden taxes that nobody is talking about,” Wynford Superintendent Steve Mohr said about the new healthcare law and its impact. “That’s put a real burden on school districts. We have to monitor that. Whenever you look at the cost of health insurance that’s a significant amount.”
Like everyone else, school districts are concerned about premium increases often blamed as a result of implementing the Affordable Healthcare Act. But premium increases aren’t the lone health insurance concern for school administrators and treasurers.
One of the taxes “nobody talks about” that Mohr mentioned is a per person premium. Mohr said that alone will take a $20,000 chunk out of the Wynford budget – and is paid for one way or another by taxpayers.
But the real potential for damage to budgets is the regulation that requires school districts, like all businesses, to offer “an affordable healthcare plan” to anyone who works 30 hours or more per week.
“It’s definitely something that with every (personnel) decision we make is in the back of our minds,” Bucyrus Superintendent Kevin Kimmel said.
That single regulation means that it is feasible that temporary personnel such as substitute teachers, aides, food service workers and even lay coaches could become eligible for entry onto district healthcare plans.
Those plans don’t come cheap, as just about anyone who buys their own health insurance or pays for at least a portion of their healthcare plans through their employer, knows all too well.
Kimmel said his district’s share for a family plan is $16,500 per year. Mohr said Wynford pays $15,000 for family plan and $7,000 for a single person. Colonel Crawford Superintendent Todd Martin said that district pays about $15,000 for a family plan.
All three districts get their insurance through a different carrier or consortium. Regardless of where or how the insurance is purchased, the inference of the impact on an otherwise tight budget is clear.
“That can cripple a school district if you have to start handing those out,” Kimmel said.
The magic number is 30 hours per week which means that long-term teaching substitutes, especially those who also coach for the school, could reach the level of employment that entitles them to health care benefits under the Affordable Healthcare Act. It makes no difference that one individual works under two separate contracts in covering different roles for the district – if their combined total hours for the week is 30 or more they are entitled access to the district’s healthcare plan for full-time employees.
“Some schools have subs that work nearly every day, and if they also coach they could qualify,” Martin said.
Colonel Crawford gets its insurance through the Wynford-Crawford Consortium. That consortium has provided a software program that tracks the hours of substitutes and coaches not already on a full-time status. Mohr said Wynford has put a tracking system in place and Kimmel says his administrative staff, especially Treasurer Ryan Cook, have been to several seminars on the issue.
“We looked at this last year. We only have three people it might affect,” Martin said. “You can’t have all your subs qualifying for health insurance.”
Mohr said the entire issue of health insurance is a real concern to school districts.
“We’ve been working with our insurance representative about what’s coming next year,” Mohr said. “There’s so much uncertainty out there.”
While both Martin and Mohr don’t foresee having to not use a particular substitute because their hours are dangerously close to the limit, both said that’s why the tracking process was so important. Their district cannot afford unplanned additions onto its healthcare rolls.
“We’ve trimmed teachers through attrition,” Martin said. “I don’t know what’s going to go next. We’ve had a lot of meetings about health care.”
Kimmel said his district has taken an additional step and will be instituting policies regarding both substitutes and coaches to avoid any potential situations resulting in someone having to go on the school’s health plan.
“”We’re going to have to put restrictions on them. We’re going to limit them to working four days per week,” Kimmel said about substitutes. “There will be set hours for coaches too.”
The math is simple: the addition of roughly three employees who used to be considered as part-time to healthcare plans could now equal what it costs a district to put a recent college graduate into the classroom as a full-time teacher.
But the variables certainly don’t end there. As Kimmel noted his district uses a service to provide aids and it is the responsibility of that service to provide healthcare to the aids if they qualify under the new Obamacare regulations.
However, Kimmel was just as quick to point out that those costs will certainly be passed on to the district and may render such services for aids “economically inefficient” for his district.
All the higher costs for public school districts associated with healthcare overhaul are ultimately passed along to taxpayers who provide the school’s revenue through local, state and federal taxes. Unfortunately, that taxpaying public is also paying for its own higher healthcare costs as well.