[T]he union for teachers in Vermont has lost a seat on the board of a health insurance pool for educators.
The membership of the Vermont Education Health Initiative voted Friday to replace the president of the Vermont NEA with the director of the Vermont School Boards Association.
VEHI’s five-person board is made up of representatives from four areas: one seat goes to a superintendent of schools, one seat is for a school business manager, one is for a school board member, and two had been set aside for the union’s leadership.
Laura Soares, who is president and CEO of VEHI, said that she received a petition in late August signed by 118 school boards requesting a change to the bylaws. She said the Vermont NEA is an advocacy organization and is working on behalf of union members and school employees. They felt that the school boards should also have an advocate on the board to bring balance.
“This is about equity issues. This [agenda] item really illustrates that as an advocacy organization the NEA has two seats on a five member board and as a (school) board member I have no advocate representing me on the board. This will give us a seat at the table,” said Neil O’Dell, chair of the Norwich School Board, in support of the move.
Joel Cook, executive director of the NEA, and Martha Allen, president at Vermont NEA, had served on the board. Allen’s seat came up for election this year. She will be replaced by Nicole Mace, representing the School Board Association.
The change in the board’s structure comes as school boards across the state gear up to negotiate a record number of teacher contracts because of a looming deadline to move teachers on to new health care plans by January 2018.
In March, VEHI decided to make the most generous of the four new health care plans the default for teachers whose contracts weren’t in place by January.
The decision significantly undermined school boards’ ability to negotiate the new terms, according to Rick Scott, chair of the Addison Central Supervisory Union School Board, who spearheaded the campaign to change the structure of the board.
“One hundred and fifty people recognized there is an imbalance in how the board is structured,” he said at the annual meeting of VEHI on Friday.
“It became apparent the Vermont NEA had a disproportionate influence on the actions of the board,” Scott said adding that the change he was promoting was about stability, equity and balance. “School boards pay a great portion of the costs of health care. It is my feeling that our advocacy organization should have equal place on the board representing the collective positions of the boards around the state.”
In March, the VEHI board wasn’t as familiar with the plans as they were by June, according to Soares. “Our thinking about the plans evolved and deepened and so a majority of the board voted to change the default option,” she said.
In June, VEHI chose a plan that offers the same coverage from the same providers with lower premiums but with higher out-of-pocket costs for teachers. Both union representatives voted against using the plan.
“This issue of health care is one in which the NEA has not even been willing to think about alternatives and that is why this decision is important,” Alice Worth, superintendent of Windsor Central Supervisory Union, said in an interview.
Cook and Allen were not present at the VEHI meeting, but Cook said in an interview that originally the school boards association had nothing to do with VEHI. “VEHI used to be a partnership of the School Board’s Insurance Trust and Vermont NEA,” Cook said, adding that it had an eight-member board with four management positions and four employee slots.
Then the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation required them to change the structure to a membership organization of school boards. “The equal representation we had between management and employees disappeared.” It became a five-person board and VT-NEA’s representation was in the minority with two seats, he said.
But Scott said the three other voices on the board don’t represent school boards or superintendents as a whole. “They are individuals bringing their district representation to the table which is valuable but they do not have the same capabilities as an advocacy organization would have in making things happen the way the boards want them to happen.”
