>Readers Respond to teacher raising healthcare 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
Reader …
…and still, teachers pay orders of magnitude less than private sector employees for health care.
Why don’t you provide some useful numbers, like the per teacher monthly contribution (prorated over a 12 month year) and allow the taxpayers to compare THAT number to the one that they pay in the private sector.
But that would not serve your needs since it would shed some light on how sweet of a deal the teachers have it compared to private sector employees.
You would prefer to be disingenuous and disrespectful to the taxpayers by “seriously miscommunicating” the comparative costs that teachers are paying for health care benefits. Rather than being grateful for having not only a comparatively very, very small health care contribution, but also in many cases a much, much more generous package of health care benefits, you would rather whine and moan and try to greedily and selfishly line your own pockets on the backs of the taxpayer.
You may think that you are very clever and are representing your union well, but in fact you are insulting the taxpayers and increasing opposition to the teacher’s position by exposing the teacher’s union’s greed and scorn for the taxpayer.
