>NJ has mandated that teachers pay a greater share of healthcare premiums. But the annual increase is still FAR FAR below the actual increase in costs.
Information has been seriously miscommunicated and this needs to be corrected.
For over forty years, Ridgewood teachers have contributed towards health care costs. In June, a legal mandate was passed whereby public school employees were required to contribute additional money towards health care; a four-year phase-in was created. This year, the REA’s medical contribution to the BOE is $800,000the following year $1.4 million culminating in 2013-14 with medical contributions to the BOE reaching $2.1 million based on current premium costs. As health costs rise, so does the % of contribution. In three years, the Ridgewood BOE will have collected over $4 million in employee contributions. This money comes directly from teacher contributions and isn’t being culled from add’l school taxes. Teachers are asking for a fair contract based on a more equitable distribution of these BOE funds
How about if you REALLY correct the misinformation and tell the WHOLE story. What percentage of his/her health care premium does the individual teacher currently pay? What percentage does the teacher pay for family care? And what are the yearly increases in the percentage, based on the law?
I’ll let you fill in those percentages (forget the total $$ amount, it means nothing without context).
How much is the real COST of the premiums increasing this year? I’ve got that one — 20%. And that’s a typical annual increase.
What do you mean that in three years the BOE will have “collected” $4 million in employee contributions? Where do you think that money will be? Not sitting in the bank, no, it will have been spent each of those three years — every last penny of it plus MUCH MORE — on paying your premium costs. Where do you think the rest of the money to pay the FULL premium cost will have come from? Yes, as you put it, “culled from taxes.” Now can you see the problem?
You are making the mistake — as teachers’ union groupthink has done for generations — to think that any funds which the district has must be “distributed” equitably. When some aid comes in, or a savings is reached, the union’s immediate thought is “give some to the teachers.” That is no way to run a business.
You are correct, the state of NJ has mandated that teachers pay a greater share of healthcare premiums. But the annual increase is still FAR FAR below the actual increase in costs. With the state cap on the amount the district can raise taxes, the system simply cannot continue to stand. The deficit between costs and income can only come by cutting programs.
This a dynamic that must change.