The DeKalb County Board of Education, facing an Oct. 1 deadline to inform its employee’s about their healthcare plan, decided last week not to make any changes in benefits.
The federal government’s decision to delay implementation of the employer mandate portion of the Affordable Health Care Act until 2015 prompted the board to put off plans to pay a larger share of single health insurance coverage for support staff.
Currently, the school system pays 64 percent of the cost of health insurance for certified employees with a single or a family plan, while the employee picks up the remaining 36 percent. The system pays 51 percent of the cost for support staff.
Under the new law, however, no employee may pay more than 9.5 percent of their income for health insurance, and the current arrangement apparently does not meet these standards for support staff.
The plan budgeted by the school board for the 2013-14 school year would have offered single health-insurance coverage for support staff employees who chose to participate, at the rate of $90 per month. The school system would have paid the remainder of the cost of the policies.
We have to make a decision tonight about what we want to do, whether to implement what we voted on earlier in the year with the changes or to put this on pause and hold off and wait to see what the federal government does with affordable health care,” said Chairman Johnny Lattimore. “As we all know, whatever they've got planned today may change tomorrow. So we don't know what's going to happen within the next year before all of this has to be implemented,” Lattimore continued.
“We need to make sure we don't run into any complications. Don't you feel we need to go ahead and adhere to what we have already done?” asked 5th District board member W.J. (Dub) Evins, III.
I think that would be one option, but I don't know what all the ramifications will be as the rules will change,” replied Director of Schools Mark Willoughby. “As I have stated before, this will help some people. It won't harm anybody, but there will be a large group that it won't help. The people who have family coverage it will not help. The rules may not change or they may change,” he said.
“From the very beginning I've always recommended that we do more for all our employees,” Willoughby continued. “This particular healthcare does not say we have to do anything for all employees. It says we have to do something for a group of employees. No one can be paying over 9.5 percent of their income for insurance. We have a group of employees, who if they stay with the present plan without us doing anything, would be paying over 9.5 percent,” he said.
“The best thing to do is to pay for everybody, but we can't afford to pay for everybody,” Willoughby said.
“I make a motion that we keep it as it has been in the past until we have additional information to direct us otherwise,” Evins said.
After board member Doug Stephens seconded to the motion, it passed unanimously, with all members present except Kenny Rhody.
Once the new law is implemented,  all employers with more than 50 full-time employees will be required to provide coverage to their workers or be subject to fines and penalties.