C'mon, man! Get your minds outta the gutter!
We're talking about MATH here...not whatever YOU were thinking.
Math...you know...as in the "show your work" mantra high schoolers better be gearing up to hear?
The subject, of course, is the 2011-12 budget.
Specifically, let's tackle one of the high ticket items: Health Insurance costs.
At roughly 11% [still 11%!!!!!] of the budget, this is a fine place for an invasion of the fluffernutters.
Budget line 240 - Health Insurance
3 year average spending: $7,711,596
------3 year range of spending: $7,455,998 to $8,100,185 [+ $400K]
Budgeted 2010-11: $8,224,189
------Result: underspent by $125,000
2011-12 proposed budget:$8,322,603
------ An INCREASE of $100,000 over last year's budget
------ An increase of $225,000 over what we spent
This Smells Funny And We Shouldn't Eat It!
That just doesn't make sense, does it? After all, weren't we making employees, particularly teachers, pay a substantially higher percentage of their health insurance premiums? This is, of course, where the district waves its hands and says,
"Well....you understand that the cost of health insurance premiums rose this year...and we're adding more staff--- due to enrollment increases!--- which means that costs will increase. We think that raising this budget line a mere 1.2% represents significant fiscal restraint."
-----expected SPASD rebuttal
Poppycock! So let's show OUR math...meaning that the district will have NO CHOICE but to show THEIR math if they wish to refute our calculations.
What does a health insurance premium cost?
Fair question...and one needs to know that figure to be able to understand things. The last number we had from the district for 2010-11 was:
....cost of a family health plan was $15,129
....cost of a single health plan was $6,696
For 2010-11, Local 60 paid 9%; Administrators paid 5%, and SPEA paid 1.1-1.3% [$75/yr for single; $200/yr for family]
One can easily see from this that the district had the most to gain from the Walker Plan for SPEA employees, as 9% is a heck of a lot more than 1.3%. For the district, and the taxpayers, that meant paying only 91% instead of more than 98.5%.
Were there increases to health insurance plan costs for 2011-12?
Yes. The
district's FAQs on the 2011-budget indicates that the projected increases were 3.5%. So that's their argument that the increased budgeting is explained by increased premiums. Hold that thought!
Therefore for 2011-12 the cost
per employee,
....of a family health plan is about $ $14,249
....of a single health plan is about $6,307
Based on past history, approximately 2/3 of SPEA members sign up for the family plan, with most of the rest taking the single plan. Some in 2-teacher homes, instead opt for a $3,600 lump sum payment. Let's just assume everyone takes a plan.
What about the costs incurred by adding new employees?
Again, the board was told in the March meeting that the plan was to increase staffing by 13.7 FTE (let's call it 14) due to increased enrollment. Of course that number could go up further. New FTEs are important because we paid nothing for them last year (obviously) so all costs get added to the bottom line. Since we know that the cost of a premiums, and what the ratio of family plans to single plans is, we can come upo with a pretty darn goos estimates of costs.
How much savings will we occur from employees paying more of the cost from premiums?
Slide 10 of 17 from the Match 16 Budget planning session indicates that:
| Source | Description | Savings/ Cost |
| CBA 2-28-11 | Savings: Employees contribute 9% for health ins. | $(750,000) |
So....if we are budgeting for $750,000 in savings (-9.3%)
...costs are going up 3.5%
...and we're only adding 14 new staff...
How can that add up to a 1.2% INCREASE in costs????
Put it all together: Looking at it in terms of total cost to the district
- The district proposed a 1.2% increase in health insurance costs in the budget or a $222,500 increase over 2010-11 ($8,100,185 → $8,322,603
- Health insurance rates going up 3.5%
- So 8,100,185 * 1.035=
- $8,383,691
But….
we were also told of $750,000 savings from employees paying 9%
So, shouldn’t the budgeted amount be:
$7,633,691? [$8,383,691 - $750,000]
Which means the budget is top-heavy by $ 688,912 [ $8,322,603 - $7,633,691]
Oh…we have new employees?
14 was the projection...due to enrollment
The plan cost to the district is about $14,250 for a family plan
2/3 of teachers pay family plan, but even if all 14 took family plan,
The district “new” costs would be ~ $200K
So things still look to be about $500K top heavy
$500K would pay for nearly ALL 6 of the district's desired new budget initiatives!
And this is just from one line of the budget!
So...maybe our math is wrong...but at least we're showing it. The district shows NOTHING to back up it's claims. You know what your teacher would say...if you don't show your work you get no more than half credit. Some would give NO credit.
OK district...will you show us yours?
We'd love nothing better than for you to prove we're wrong....because it would still mean an increase in transparency. Full disclosure beats no disclosure hands down.
And we found that interesting because the average district-wide F/R eligibility percentage for these districts was 36% (statewide, the average is 37%). Hmmm....
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