Employee Benefits:
- $652,182 - Medical Benefits.
- These are costs for medicial insurance for covered personnel (and their dependents) and eligible retirees.
- Also included are costs for Blue Care HMO as well as employee waiver payments.
- The budget assumes use of $225,000 from the medical trust fund in 2010/2011 to offset some cost increases and budgets the self-funded portion of the insurance liability at 105% of expected claim levels. *The town and BOE are liable for up to 110% of claims in a given year.
Teacher's Medical Plan Cost Details
Administrator's Medical Plan Cost Details
Secretary/Other:
Custodian:
IAT/Summary:
10 comments:
It's clear that salaries & benefits make up the largest part of the increase in the budget.
Why couldn't the board just eliminate the salary increases across the board. It's either eliminate the increases or eliminate jobs. If the unions have to vote on any change to the contract then the fate of everyone's jobs will be in their hands. They can either save the members jobs by accepting no salary increase, or they can reject it knowing it'll cause many layoffs.
If you're going to say the teachers have to vote on whether to open the contract, then don't open it. Don't pay the increases either - reason being that the funds are not available.
Tony-
Regarding the 'expended' dollars in your exhibits - are these the estimated total amounts for the 10/11 school year? or to-date expenses for the 10/11 school year?
Expended amounts are the budgeted amounts allocated to these accounts for the current school year.
6:55 here again. Reason for my question is that if 'expended' is the estimated total for the 10/11 school year, then the teacher salary account really represents a 5.6% increase and the benefits line represents a 12.75% increase. Shouldn't we be comparing the requested amounts to the prior years estimated actual rather than the prior years budget numbers?
7:04, I'm sorry, I was thinking current school year (10/11). The numbers for 2009/2010 (Expended) are just that, actually expended for the 2009/2010 school year. Sorry for the confusion here.
"Why couldn't the board just eliminate the salary increases across the board."
Because the last BOE negotiated and entered into a legally binding contract calling for 4.4% increases for 3 years. Not paying the increase would essentially be breaking the contract and put the BOE and Town in legal jeopardy and break a number of laws. But I understand your point.
"They can either save the members jobs by accepting no salary increase, or they can reject it knowing it'll cause many layoffs."
We've been down this road already during the last budget process and layoffs did occur for 2010-2011.
"If you're going to say the teachers have to vote on whether to open the contract, then don't open it. Don't pay the increases either - reason being that the funds are not available."
In order for the contract to be opened, both parties (BOE and Union) must agree to open it. It's simpler than that though...nobody has called for the contract to be opened, the BOE only asked for concessions.
I think the point you're making is that the lion's share of the budget increase is salaries and benefits and that would be the place to try and work something out.
Do we have a great deal of redundancy within non-certified staff? Could a couple of positions be eliminated and those duties enveloped into others. We have a Custodial Supervisor and a Facilities Manager, can the Supervisor be eliminated and the FM assume those duties? We have a Transportation coordinator and a Supervisor of fiscal and transportation services, can that be combined? just a couple of examples that jumped out from your posts.
Also, i suggested years ago for us to take a look at class sizes throughout and course offerings at CHS. Class isze always seems to come up. Lower grades should have smaller class sizes, as I do believe that the younger students require much more attention. As they move up through the grades the ultimate goal is to prepare them for college, so would it not make sense to increase class sizes at the high school level? Maybe there is a savings of a few salaries there.
I don't want to see anyone lose their job, but the escalation of salries and benefits over the years has steered us in this direction.
I do believe the teachers union leadership showed their prime objective last year when they refused to discuss concessions. The leadership does not care about this town or their rank and file. Jobs be damned they will not concede anything, unless it is a deferred payback.
I also recall some chatter regarding the extra compensation for being a department head but not teaching the max courses possible. Is there a pre-determined contracted amount that they must be paid? is there opportunity to combine a couple departments and have one chair for 2 departments, without any increase in the extra comp?
Tony, some companies are auditing dependants empoloyees claim for healthcare. It is easily done by making employees submit documentation proving dependants are just that. I had to submit one of my tax return pages....
9:11, one of the issues that came up when the Town got an update from our insurance consultants on Obamacare...is issue of dependents.
Namely, should the school district offer insurance to dependents if those dependents (working spouse for example) already has insurance through their employer's policy or can enroll into it? Why should Cheshire pay for dependent's insurance when the dependent can obtain coverage through their employer?
We can't do much with medical costs without opening up the contract but we will be starting contract discussion for the next contract this coming summer and health care costs will be a topic of discussion.
Thank you for your treatment of this wonderful subject.
Sample Employee Recommendation Letter
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