[A] House Republican is offering an amendment that would create a statewide teacher health care benefit in 2020.
The proposal is attached to a bill that makes sweeping changes to the school finance formula and reforms tax laws to protect Vermonters from changes at the federal level. House lawmakers will be considering the legislation on Tuesday.
For months, Gov. Phil Scott has asked the Legislature to put school spending cost containment measures in place and has been frustrated by lawmakers’ focus on changes to the school funding formula. A statewide teacher health care benefit is one of Scott’s primary recommendations.
Scott and the Legislature were at odds over the issue at the end of the last legislative session. As part of a compromise, a commission was set up to study moving negotiations to the state. In late December, the panel recommended a statewide teachers contract for health care, but didn’t lay out a path for implementation.
Rep. Jim Harrison, R-North Chittenden, is offering an amendment that addresses that issue as part of the debate over school funding reforms. The measure would require state officials to negotiate teachers health care contracts. Currently, all negotiations for benefits and salary are conducted at the local level. The Vermont NEA, the state teachers union, has adamantly opposed statewide teacher health care negotiations.
Harrison said as far as he knows, there has been no discussion of a similar proposal in the House Education Committee this year.
Every year lawmakers postpone the discussion, he said contracts move forward and savings aren’t banked. “I think it would be prudent to have that conversation this year and not wait again,” Harrison said.
Under his amendment a panel of six lawmakers, three from each body, would come up with a process for implementation. The panel would meet over the summer and issue a report by Dec. 15. The current school employee contracts are set to expire by September 2019. Harrison’s plan would put a statewide health care benefit in effect by Jan. 1, 2020.
“Whatever the study committee comes up with would have to be acted on by the Legislature next year … the negotiations would theoretically take effect next summer and fall and go into effect Jan. 1,” he said, adding current benefits would stay “as is” until the new statewide benefit is negotiated and acted upon.
As for the outcome of the bargaining, Harrison said, “It could be richer or could be less generous than what we have today. I don’t want to anticipate what negotiations will transpire.”
On Sunday, the Vermont NEA, a teachers union, asked members to call their representatives and tell them to vote against the amendment. Since they issued the call, the amendment has been redrafted, but Darren Allen, spokesman for the union said, “We will continue to oppose a state takeover of collective bargaining.”
Nicole Mace, head of the Vermont School Boards Association, said it is difficult for each school district to negotiate complex health care benefits. “Some of those issues that could have been addressed by a statewide benefit have come to pass,” Mace said. “We would love to have a committee of jurisdiction take this up and fully vet any approach before it goes to the floor for a full vote. That is a process my members could get behind.”
Mace served on the Vermont Educational Health Benefits Commission and supported the recommendation that the state negotiate teacher health insurance benefits. The three members who opposed it in a 6-3 vote had backgrounds in labor. David Provost, chair of the panel, said moving to a statewide negotiated contract would benefit school employees and taxpayers.
Each district negotiates different cost sharing levels for teachers. The commission heard testimony about inequalities in benefits between school employees from different districts with different bargaining units. A statewide negotiation would be fairer, according to the report.
Last year, almost every teacher contract was renegotiated as part of an effort to move school employees to new health care plans that comply with federal law. Proponents of last year’s plan for a statewide health care benefit said it would have saved taxpayers up to $26 million a year without hiking out-of-pocket costs for school employees. Opponents were skeptical of the savings and didn’t want to move bargaining away from local school districts.
Most school districts didn’t negotiate savings on health care, and as a result nearly $12 million was left on the table. That translates to a 1.5 cent increase in property taxes or a $30 increase for a house assessed at $200,000, according to the report.
