Insurance eats away salary gains for teachers

By Rod Haxton, editor

Teachers in USD 466 knew this would be a difficult budget year when negotiating their salaries prior to the 2009-10 school year.

Before salary negotiations were completed they had seen significant cuts in state funding, along with the prospect of even further state cuts being projected for the current year. Also in anticipation of cuts in state funding, the board of education eliminated three staff positions at Scott Community High School.

When salary negotiations were completed the Scott County Teachers’ Association agreed to accept a 1.57 percent pay hike, which was also the salary increase passed along to all classified staff (secretaries, custodians, cooks, etc.).

“We understood the situation the school district was in,” says Cheryl Kucharik, a long-time member of the SCTA negotiation team. “We didn’t ask for a big pay increase when negotiations began. We were willing to do our part in order to help the district live within its budget.”

However, the district’s staff may have sacrificed even more than they bargained for.

The starting salary for a first-year teacher in the district was increased by $200 - from $33,375 to $33,575 - or one-half of one percent.

Teachers who are “frozen” at the bottom of their salary ladder were also limited to a $200 pay hike. For example, a teacher who has been in the district for 21 years and has a bachelor’s degree plus 30 additional credit hours saw their salary bumped from $43,515 to $43,715 - or slightly less than one-half of one percent.

A teacher with 24 years of experience who has a master’s degree plus 10 additional credit hours saw a $200 increase in their salary to $47,755.

Teachers who had flexibility of movement on the salary schedule received an annual pay hike of $425 with a bachelor’s degree and $525 with a master’s degree for an added year of experience in the district. This is on top of the 1.5 percent pay hike.

This experience factor of about 1.65 percent, combined with the 1.5 percent pay hike, boosted salaries for some staff members by approximately three percent.

Insurance Hike

However, most of that salary hike has been wiped out for the 70-plus teachers on the district’s health insurance plan.

The district pays the cost of a single policy for each teacher as part of the benefits package. Staff members must pay the difference in premiums if they want to include a spouse or family.

A teacher on the district’s family insurance plan, for example, must pay $6,300 out-of-pocket - an increase of $218 from the previous year.

On the other hand, a teacher who includes only their spouse on the district’s plan saw a slight decrease in premiums when the district switched from Preferred Health to BC/BS. That employee is paying $4,476 in annual premiums, a drop of $108 from last year.

But then it can get a little more complicated in determining “winners” and “losers” under the district’s benefits package.

In order to limit the increase in their Blue Cross/Blue Shield rates to 15.6 percent for those on the family plan, the district had to double the deductibles on singles and families from $500/$1,000 to $1,000/$2,000. In effect, the teachers have been forced to assume a greater risk of higher medical bills in an effort to hold down the district’s health insurance cost.

A teacher who has a bachelor’s degree plus 20 hours, who has been employed by the district for 10 years, saw their salary increase by $625. If they have a spouse on the district’s health insurance plan, they also saw a slight decrease in their premiums, for a net gain of $733.

So far, so good - as long as they remain healthy.

But if they have medical bills of $1,500 during the year, their net pay increase from the previous year amounts to $333 when the higher deductible is calculated.

A teacher with a master’s degree plus 30 hours who has been in the district for 16 years who has a family on the district’s health plan will see a net salary gain of $402. With the same $1,500 in medical bills, their total salary increase would amount to just $2.

And that doesn’t include the cost of visits to the doctor. Employees are now required to pay $25 for each visit, an increase of $5.

Bottom line. If teachers on the district’s plan stay healthy and require no medical care during the year, their salary increase might cover a month’s rent, or maybe a house payment. If not, their pay increase won’t even cover the cost of a movie ticket.