BOE: The Teachers Have A Point

After months of research, the Board of Education announced Thursday that the has some validity to it, and the complaint affects all employees in both the municipal government and the school district.

The teachers union alleged that teachers were paying up to $494 too much for health insurance for the 2011-12 fiscal year. While Superintendent Jerome Belair would not get into specific numbers Thursday night, he said it appears the grievance is correct, and all employees that work for the Town of Waterford were paying too much.

“We will work with the unions to find a remedy,” Belair said.

The Gritty Details

The Town of Waterford has a self-insured health care plan for all of its employees, including municipal and school district employees. While all of its unions have different health care plans and pay different premium share rates, they are all charged their percentages using one town-wide standard.

The town, for the 2011-12 fiscal year, began charging all of its employees a fully equivalent percentage rate for health care compared to an allocation rate associated with self-insurance programs. This was not something that town had done recently, according to a press release issued by Belair and First Selectman Dan Steward.

“We got some advice from counsel, and it turns out we probably shouldn’t have done that,” Steward said in a Thursday night interview.

The result was town employees were charged more than they should have been charged for health care. The amount each employee was overcharged depends on how much of a percentage of premium cost share they pay, with teachers paying the highest rate at 18 percent.

The teachers union filed a grievance about this in October, with Belair originally rejecting it in November. The union then filed it with the Board of Education in December, and after some research, it was determined there was merit to the grievance, according to the press release.

The contract “is silent,” or does not specifically say if the town can charge a fully equivalent rate or the allocation rate, Belair said. In that situation, the procedure is to look at what was done, and what was done was the town charged the allocation rate, he said.

What Now

The municipal government and the school district will work with all town employees, even non-union town employees, to “remedy the situation,” according to the release. Belair and Steward refused to go into details about specific numbers and how much money it would cost Thursday night.