MCPS has a $40 million deficit in its Employee Benefit Plan (EBP)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a mid 40’s teacher I see mainly older teachers now. Not enough young healthy staff to offset the expense us older staff. Definitely a lot of deferred health problems and treatments this year for me. Loads of staff out for longer lengths of time. Many should retire but can’t due to golden handcuffs.

I know of at least one admin on wegovy. They have been in and out of the hospital and in and out of leave due to major health issues. Definitely not a beauty based weight loss reason as some might infer here. People are just getting older and run into major life problems. All these modern miracles in medicine are expensive.

+1. Older workforce along with deferred healthcare treatments from during the pandemic, paired with inflation cost and shortages.

+100 We work so many hours, we put ourselves and our health last in our priorities - a mistake that I have made.

This issue is not specific to MoCo. Unless all the school districts vastly underestimated premiums, somebody messed up and now it is going to cost taxpayers and/or future employees a lot money.

Correct. We should look to see PG County Public Schools, Howard County Public Schools and Frederick County Public Schools have similarly sized EBP deficits if this is just due to inflation and increased healthcare costs.

If they don’t, then you know someone at MCPS messed up.

As usual I blame McKnight. Inflation is her fault! The board should fire her for this!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm surprised that given we have so many teachers on this forum and that MCPS has implemented a spending freeze because of this deficit, that more teachers aren't concerned by this news.

Someone needs to do a serious line by line audit of both MCPS and the county and cut out all the wasteful spending. They get plenty of money and need to manage it better. Enough is enough.

I would focus on healthcare benefits- obscene, Cadillac healthcare

This is a double-edged sword, though. For a number of teachers, the good health benefits at low cost are the ONLY thing keeping people in their jobs, not wanting to lose it for themselves and their families by leaving. If that goes away, I promise you the staffing crisis will get worse. The conditions and pay are already driving people out, or at least failing to retain them; wrecking the benefits will accelerate that. The staff that are staying to keep those will feel free to bail. I'm a recent cancer survivor (at the grand old age of 36) and feel handcuffed to my job by my health insurance. If that changes, suddenly it doesn't seem so daunting to look at what other positions might make me happier with my life.

Don’t cut the benefits. No I am not a teacher. I just think the teachers deserve the quality healthcare. And that we need to pay for that.
So much bloat at central office. Cut there first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a mid 40’s teacher I see mainly older teachers now. Not enough young healthy staff to offset the expense us older staff. Definitely a lot of deferred health problems and treatments this year for me. Loads of staff out for longer lengths of time. Many should retire but can’t due to golden handcuffs.

I know of at least one admin on wegovy. They have been in and out of the hospital and in and out of leave due to major health issues. Definitely not a beauty based weight loss reason as some might infer here. People are just getting older and run into major life problems. All these modern miracles in medicine are expensive.

+1. Older workforce along with deferred healthcare treatments from during the pandemic, paired with inflation cost and shortages.

+100 We work so many hours, we put ourselves and our health last in our priorities - a mistake that I have made.

This issue is not specific to MoCo. Unless all the school districts vastly underestimated premiums, somebody messed up and now it is going to cost taxpayers and/or future employees a lot money.

Correct. We should look to see PG County Public Schools, Howard County Public Schools and Frederick County Public Schools have similarly sized EBP deficits if this is just due to inflation and increased healthcare costs.

If they don’t, then you know someone at MCPS messed up.

As usual I blame McKnight. Inflation is her fault! The board should fire her for this!

Answer the question: Are our neighboring school districts facing similarly proportional deficits in their EBPs or is MCPS an outlier?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm surprised that given we have so many teachers on this forum and that MCPS has implemented a spending freeze because of this deficit, that more teachers aren't concerned by this news.

Someone needs to do a serious line by line audit of both MCPS and the county and cut out all the wasteful spending. They get plenty of money and need to manage it better. Enough is enough.

I would focus on healthcare benefits- obscene, Cadillac healthcare

This is a double-edged sword, though. For a number of teachers, the good health benefits at low cost are the ONLY thing keeping people in their jobs, not wanting to lose it for themselves and their families by leaving. If that goes away, I promise you the staffing crisis will get worse. The conditions and pay are already driving people out, or at least failing to retain them; wrecking the benefits will accelerate that. The staff that are staying to keep those will feel free to bail. I'm a recent cancer survivor (at the grand old age of 36) and feel handcuffed to my job by my health insurance. If that changes, suddenly it doesn't seem so daunting to look at what other positions might make me happier with my life.

I’m on maternity leave right now and really want to take at least a year off to stay home with my baby. But I’ll go back because of health insurance. I really do think that’s the only thing still keeping me teaching.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm surprised that given we have so many teachers on this forum and that MCPS has implemented a spending freeze because of this deficit, that more teachers aren't concerned by this news.

Someone needs to do a serious line by line audit of both MCPS and the county and cut out all the wasteful spending. They get plenty of money and need to manage it better. Enough is enough.

I would focus on healthcare benefits- obscene, Cadillac healthcare

This is a double-edged sword, though. For a number of teachers, the good health benefits at low cost are the ONLY thing keeping people in their jobs, not wanting to lose it for themselves and their families by leaving. If that goes away, I promise you the staffing crisis will get worse. The conditions and pay are already driving people out, or at least failing to retain them; wrecking the benefits will accelerate that. The staff that are staying to keep those will feel free to bail. I'm a recent cancer survivor (at the grand old age of 36) and feel handcuffed to my job by my health insurance. If that changes, suddenly it doesn't seem so daunting to look at what other positions might make me happier with my life.

Don’t cut the benefits. No I am not a teacher. I just think the teachers deserve the quality healthcare. And that we need to pay for that.
So much bloat at central office. Cut there first.

Health premiums are set each year to pay for healthcare claims. Taxpayers pay the majority of the premiums and employees pay their share. When the total cost goes up, premiums go up which means costs for taxpayers and employees go up. Unfortunately, since costs are exceeding the premiums this year, it will have to be made up somehow - by taxpayers, next year's employees, or some combination.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They should look into prorating the health insurance costs of part time employees. Currently, as long as an employees works 50%, they receive full healthcare benefits. It would seem that an easy way to cut money is for the county to only pay the percentage that the employee is working.

You'll lose a ton of crossing guards this way

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should look into prorating the health insurance costs of part time employees. Currently, as long as an employees works 50%, they receive full healthcare benefits. It would seem that an easy way to cut money is for the county to only pay the percentage that the employee is working.

You'll lose a ton of crossing guards this way

Crossing guards have county benefits through the police department, not MCPS benefits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They should look into prorating the health insurance costs of part time employees. Currently, as long as an employees works 50%, they receive full healthcare benefits. It would seem that an easy way to cut money is for the county to only pay the percentage that the employee is working.

And say goodbye to paras, bus drivers, lunch and recess workers, and a host of others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should look into prorating the health insurance costs of part time employees. Currently, as long as an employees works 50%, they receive full healthcare benefits. It would seem that an easy way to cut money is for the county to only pay the percentage that the employee is working.

And say goodbye to paras, bus drivers, lunch and recess workers, and a host of others.

+1

many of the support staff workers are only working for the benefits for their families.

[Anonymous]

Anyone who wants things cut or changed, I’d remind you that it is currently Operating Budget season. Feel free to write to the BOE, County Council with any of your ideas and concerns. So be sure you watch or attend all the Operating Budget work session so you’ll actually be talking from a reasonable frame of reference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should look into prorating the health insurance costs of part time employees. Currently, as long as an employees works 50%, they receive full healthcare benefits. It would seem that an easy way to cut money is for the county to only pay the percentage that the employee is working.

And say goodbye to paras, bus drivers, lunch and recess workers, and a host of others.

+1

many of the support staff workers are only working for the benefits for their families.

+100 I am a para and more than one of my colleagues work specifically because of the benefits. MCPS switched to Cigna last year to cut costs, which was very unpopular with teachers and support staff. Dr. McKnight needs to be held accountable for this and other mistakes that have happened on her watch.

Last year when Evan Glass and Natali Fani Gonzalez on the county council wanted explanation for items in the MCPS budget the BOE put out a statement accusing them of only doing so because the superintendent and BOE are all female. I believe there was also a second statement saying Dr. McKnight was being criticized because of her race. The MCPS budget is huge and the county council SHOULD pick it apart and ask questions.

[Anonymous]

If you think the deficits are bad now, wait until MCPS alienates its tax base when they redistrict people who are currently buying million dollar homes out of the schools that they think they're getting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should look into prorating the health insurance costs of part time employees. Currently, as long as an employees works 50%, they receive full healthcare benefits. It would seem that an easy way to cut money is for the county to only pay the percentage that the employee is working.

And say goodbye to paras, bus drivers, lunch and recess workers, and a host of others.

+1

many of the support staff workers are only working for the benefits for their families.

+100 I am a para and more than one of my colleagues work specifically because of the benefits. MCPS switched to Cigna last year to cut costs, which was very unpopular with teachers and support staff. Dr. McKnight needs to be held accountable for this and other mistakes that have happened on her watch.

Last year when Evan Glass and Natali Fani Gonzalez on the county council wanted explanation for items in the MCPS budget the BOE put out a statement accusing them of only doing so because the superintendent and BOE are all female. I believe there was also a second statement saying Dr. McKnight was being criticized because of her race. The MCPS budget is huge and the county council SHOULD pick it apart and ask questions.

Wait so McKnight is responsible when cost exceed premiums for years, but also responsible for changing to another health insurance company to reduce cost because staff didn’t want the change? So I guess staff would just be fine with MCPS passing on any increases to them in their premiums?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you think the deficits are bad now, wait until MCPS alienates its tax base when they redistrict people who are currently buying million dollar homes out of the schools that they think they're getting.

The school is not conveyed with the home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you think the deficits are bad now, wait until MCPS alienates its tax base when they redistrict people who are currently buying million dollar homes out of the schools that they think they're getting.

The school is not conveyed with the home.

Are you suggesting that people don't pay more for better schools? Or that they do, but they're "wrong" to? Because the latter does not preclude my point. Expectations are set by the fact that boundaries haven't changed much in 40 years, and those folks are in for a rude awakening.