The union representing Vermont’s public school teachers didn’t sign on to a report endorsing a statewide contract for school employees’ health coverage because they say it didn’t do enough to protect the lowest-paid school employees, a union official told lawmakers.
Testifying Thursday to the House Education Committee, Suzanne Dirmaier said the Vermont chapter of the National Education Association wanted stronger assurances that lower-salaried school workers would pay less than their better-paid colleagues in health care premiums and out-of-pocket costs.
Dirmaier was the NEA’s designee to the Vermont Health Benefits Commission, a nine-member panel created last spring to study an idea first floated unsuccessfully last year by Gov. Phil Scott that would move public school employees to a statewide contract for health coverage.
Three of the panel’s members — all from labor backgrounds — disagreed with the panel majority’s conclusion that moving to a statewide health insurance program for school employees was a good idea.
“All employees that work for a school system, whether teachers, support staff, or administrator, must have equal access to health insurance that is comprehensive, high quality and affordable. Further health care benefits must encompass and cover equitably all school employees and their dependents,” said Dirmaier, who bargains with school boards on behalf of the union.
Health insurance coverage for school employees historically has been negotiated at the local level, and local agreements usually contain provisions calling for lower premiums or out-of-pocket costs for lower-paid employees, Dirmaier said.
The commission majority did not agree to include a strong statement saying a statewide contract should protect lower-paid employees, and that became the main reason the NEA determined it could not support the majority report, Dirmaier told lawmakers.
“To come to agreement on a common health benefit for all school employees, income sensitivity must be addressed,” she said, adding that the commission came close, but then watered down the recommendation to the point labor couldn’t accept it.
Asked to elaborate, Dirmaier said, “In the end, on page six, the report talked about the Legislature ‘should’ consider instead of ‘must consider’ income sensitivity.” She said the labor members of the panel wanted a stronger statement.
Other members of the panel were hesitant to adopt stronger wording because they hadn’t heard enough testimony, according to the final report.
There was agreement that “the use of income-sensitized premiums provides an additional mechanism for further addressing and alleviating disparities across different employee classes and/or bargaining units.” But the authors of the report added that the commission can’t make “specific recommendations as to how income-sensitization should be incorporated into a broader statewide benefit negotiation at this time.”
The union also didn’t think moving to a statewide health care contract would slow the ever rising cost of health care, Dirmaier said. Access to affordable high quality health care is a much bigger, national issue “not just for school employees but for everyone. This problem, in our opinion, calls for a broad system reform that removes access for workers to high quality health care as a condition of employment and elevates it to a right of citizenship,” she said.
Sharpe, who didn’t support moving bargaining from local districts last session, said he thinks management and labor are close to a path forward, but would need to figure out how to handle a situation where the two sides can’t agree.
“We could discuss who the bargaining entities are, what the [health care] plans are going to be, and I think we would come to agreement. I’m not sure we could come to agreement in terms of what happens at impasse,” Sharpe said.
The commission also didn’t have an answer. “It isn’t an easy answer and quite frankly, I think it would require a lot more study,” Dirmaier said.
