Budget- CE recommended budget $55.7M less

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Btw the MCPS budget includes $40 million to plug the anticipated gap in the health insurance fund for employees. In other words, they already know the employer and employee premiums won't be enough to cover claims. Instead of working with the union to address this issue (by lowering costs and/or raising premiums), they are asking for millions from county taxpayers and threatening to cut services for students if we don't pay.

They need to change insurance plans and charge more for premiums like the county does and most employers.

That is a double-edged sword. The staffing crisis, particularly special ed teachers, paras, and SLPs, is only getting worse. Many people are very unhappy. And some of those unhappy people are only staying in the job because they feel handcuffed by having good insurance. If it gets expensive and worse, I promise you more people will quit, because they already wanted to and the last reason to put up with the garbage will be gone. They also already sold this year's change from CareFirst to Cigna as a way to get the same coverage for cheaper and appear to have gotten that spectacularly wrong or had one pulled over on them by Cigna, so why should anyone trust them to know what they're doing with this?

The solution to that is to do a targeted pay raise for SPED positions, and to provide benefits to paras. It's not fiscally practical to increase benefits for everyone.

It is more complicated than you think. Physics teachers are impossible to find. Should they raise their pay and not other teachers? PE teachers are very easy to find. Should they lower their pay?

Yes to Physics no to lowering pay for PE. Honestly much easier to simply put caps on CO bloat than nickle and diming everyone.

Guys, they still have to work out the health insurance issue. They have to reduce costs or increase premiums. MCPS pays for 83% of premiums so employees bear a minority of cost increases, which of course is still impactful. But a yearly injection of $40 million is not going to happen long term so they need to figure it out.

There's nothing to figure out. They need to raise the employee contributions to something a little closer to other public sector jobs.

Increasing premiums means increasing employer and employee contributions. Demanding $40 million and threatening not to fix moldy schools of they don't get it means MCPS as a system bears the entire cost.

They need to increase the employees' share of premiums. 12%/17% is incredibly low.

This is a slippery slope. Looking at Howard County schools, it’s the same/similar division between employer and employee. Granted they are much smaller of a district but MCPS charging employees more when other districts do not will not go over well.

Insurance needs to adjust what they charge as do hospitals and other medical providers. But that’s another argument for another day - plus it’s not something mcps can control.

Honestly MCEA will throw a fit even if they don't increase the cost share but just increase premiums. Unfortunately health care costs a lot and MoCo is a higher cost area than Howard and we have more low income students.

Agreed. And since this is a sanctuary county then the City Council absolutely should not put the burden of associated costs on shoulder’s of the county.

Lol where are you trolling from?

Are you new? Take a look at Elrich’s sanctuary policies. Major trickle down effect directly into the schools.

You don't seem to know much about how Montgomery County works.

Ok 👍

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Btw the MCPS budget includes $40 million to plug the anticipated gap in the health insurance fund for employees. In other words, they already know the employer and employee premiums won't be enough to cover claims. Instead of working with the union to address this issue (by lowering costs and/or raising premiums), they are asking for millions from county taxpayers and threatening to cut services for students if we don't pay.

They need to change insurance plans and charge more for premiums like the county does and most employers.

That is a double-edged sword. The staffing crisis, particularly special ed teachers, paras, and SLPs, is only getting worse. Many people are very unhappy. And some of those unhappy people are only staying in the job because they feel handcuffed by having good insurance. If it gets expensive and worse, I promise you more people will quit, because they already wanted to and the last reason to put up with the garbage will be gone. They also already sold this year's change from CareFirst to Cigna as a way to get the same coverage for cheaper and appear to have gotten that spectacularly wrong or had one pulled over on them by Cigna, so why should anyone trust them to know what they're doing with this?

The solution to that is to do a targeted pay raise for SPED positions, and to provide benefits to paras. It's not fiscally practical to increase benefits for everyone.

It is more complicated than you think. Physics teachers are impossible to find. Should they raise their pay and not other teachers? PE teachers are very easy to find. Should they lower their pay?

Yes to Physics no to lowering pay for PE. Honestly much easier to simply put caps on CO bloat than nickle and diming everyone.

Guys, they still have to work out the health insurance issue. They have to reduce costs or increase premiums. MCPS pays for 83% of premiums so employees bear a minority of cost increases, which of course is still impactful. But a yearly injection of $40 million is not going to happen long term so they need to figure it out.

There's nothing to figure out. They need to raise the employee contributions to something a little closer to other public sector jobs.

Increasing premiums means increasing employer and employee contributions. Demanding $40 million and threatening not to fix moldy schools of they don't get it means MCPS as a system bears the entire cost.

They need to increase the employees' share of premiums. 12%/17% is incredibly low.

This is a slippery slope. Looking at Howard County schools, it’s the same/similar division between employer and employee. Granted they are much smaller of a district but MCPS charging employees more when other districts do not will not go over well.

Insurance needs to adjust what they charge as do hospitals and other medical providers. But that’s another argument for another day - plus it’s not something mcps can control.

Honestly MCEA will throw a fit even if they don't increase the cost share but just increase premiums. Unfortunately health care costs a lot and MoCo is a higher cost area than Howard and we have more low income students.

Agreed. And since this is a sanctuary county then the City Council absolutely should not put the burden of associated costs on shoulder’s of the county.

Lol where are you trolling from?

Are you new? Take a look at Elrich’s sanctuary policies. Major trickle down effect directly into the schools.

You don't seem to know much about how Montgomery County works.

Ok 👍

Glad we can agree on that point.

[Anonymous]

You don’t have to take my word for it. It seems odd nit picking little fires inside MCPS while something outside of their control has a very significant impact on the budget. In the state of Maryland alone, the share of public school students from immigrant households rose from 9% to 29% in just 30 years. 39% of children enrolled in Maryland schools are from immigrant families. This is huge growth in a short period of time. This is just a statement of fact. I am completely objective. This seems like a significant financial strain. Where will this money to educate everyone come from? MCPS can’t be required to figure it out on their own. Source: https://cis.org/Report/Mapping-Impact-Immigration-Public-Schools#:~:text=Immigration%20may%20tend%20to%20strain,majority%20of%20funding%20for%20schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don’t have to take my word for it. It seems odd nit picking little fires inside MCPS while something outside of their control has a very significant impact on the budget. In the state of Maryland alone, the share of public school students from immigrant households rose from 9% to 29% in just 30 years. 39% of children enrolled in Maryland schools are from immigrant families. This is huge growth in a short period of time. This is just a statement of fact. I am completely objective. This seems like a significant financial strain. Where will this money to educate everyone come from? MCPS can’t be required to figure it out on their own. Source: https://cis.org/Report/Mapping-Impact-Immigration-Public-Schools#:~:text=Immigration%20may%20tend%20to%20strain,majority%20of%20funding%20for%20schools.

And you seriously think this is because of Elrich?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don’t have to take my word for it. It seems odd nit picking little fires inside MCPS while something outside of their control has a very significant impact on the budget. In the state of Maryland alone, the share of public school students from immigrant households rose from 9% to 29% in just 30 years. 39% of children enrolled in Maryland schools are from immigrant families. This is huge growth in a short period of time. This is just a statement of fact. I am completely objective. This seems like a significant financial strain. Where will this money to educate everyone come from? MCPS can’t be required to figure it out on their own. Source: https://cis.org/Report/Mapping-Impact-Immigration-Public-Schools#:~:text=Immigration%20may%20tend%20to%20strain,majority%20of%20funding%20for%20schools.

So what. You know many of those parents do jobs you'd never do and they are the ones cleaning your home, caring for your kids and maintaining your lawn and house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Btw the MCPS budget includes $40 million to plug the anticipated gap in the health insurance fund for employees. In other words, they already know the employer and employee premiums won't be enough to cover claims. Instead of working with the union to address this issue (by lowering costs and/or raising premiums), they are asking for millions from county taxpayers and threatening to cut services for students if we don't pay.

They need to change insurance plans and charge more for premiums like the county does and most employers.

That is a double-edged sword. The staffing crisis, particularly special ed teachers, paras, and SLPs, is only getting worse. Many people are very unhappy. And some of those unhappy people are only staying in the job because they feel handcuffed by having good insurance. If it gets expensive and worse, I promise you more people will quit, because they already wanted to and the last reason to put up with the garbage will be gone. They also already sold this year's change from CareFirst to Cigna as a way to get the same coverage for cheaper and appear to have gotten that spectacularly wrong or had one pulled over on them by Cigna, so why should anyone trust them to know what they're doing with this?

MCPS has low premiums relative to other public employees.

For example at MCPS a 12 month employee with a spouse and kids pays between $130 and $150 biweekly for a POS plan depending on whether they do the health screening thing. County government employees (which include bus drivers, firefighters, police, corrections, and social workers) pay $190 biweekly. Part of it is that county employees pay 20% of the cost and MCPS employees pay 17% (though it's actually going to be less than 17% since the premiums aren't covering the total and general dollars are being used to make up the difference).

I don't think some of you realize that money doesn't grow on trees? You can't have cheap insurance AND get the pay increases you want AND get money to pay for all the renovations you want and have the county pay for all the roads and bike lanes and everything else you want. And having premiums that don't cover claims is what creates the budget freezes that are impacting staff and students right now. This is not sustainable.

I totally agree. Folks are going to have to start picking what they want. You can’t get pay raises, low cost premiums w/ gold level health insurance and pensions plus all the other things needed to fund the system without revenue in the county.

[Anonymous]

JFC. If we just stopped paying all of the redundant CO staff (as a teacher, every single decision they have pushed down on us in the past 4 years just shows they have not stepped into a classroom unless it was a photo op) and exposed/didn’t pay for all those 6 figure admin positions who are on admin leave…we could solve a lot of this budget mess.

Also, MCPS Central this year decided to spend who knows how much on Remind and even more on Remind PD when we already have 10 different ways to contact parents….
This is an example of central office not talking to teachers. They are taking away GoGuardian which costs 200k and they decided to add Remind plus money for remind trainings??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Btw the MCPS budget includes $40 million to plug the anticipated gap in the health insurance fund for employees. In other words, they already know the employer and employee premiums won't be enough to cover claims. Instead of working with the union to address this issue (by lowering costs and/or raising premiums), they are asking for millions from county taxpayers and threatening to cut services for students if we don't pay.

They need to change insurance plans and charge more for premiums like the county does and most employers.

That is a double-edged sword. The staffing crisis, particularly special ed teachers, paras, and SLPs, is only getting worse. Many people are very unhappy. And some of those unhappy people are only staying in the job because they feel handcuffed by having good insurance. If it gets expensive and worse, I promise you more people will quit, because they already wanted to and the last reason to put up with the garbage will be gone. They also already sold this year's change from CareFirst to Cigna as a way to get the same coverage for cheaper and appear to have gotten that spectacularly wrong or had one pulled over on them by Cigna, so why should anyone trust them to know what they're doing with this?

MCPS has low premiums relative to other public employees.

For example at MCPS a 12 month employee with a spouse and kids pays between $130 and $150 biweekly for a POS plan depending on whether they do the health screening thing. County government employees (which include bus drivers, firefighters, police, corrections, and social workers) pay $190 biweekly. Part of it is that county employees pay 20% of the cost and MCPS employees pay 17% (though it's actually going to be less than 17% since the premiums aren't covering the total and general dollars are being used to make up the difference).

I don't think some of you realize that money doesn't grow on trees? You can't have cheap insurance AND get the pay increases you want AND get money to pay for all the renovations you want and have the county pay for all the roads and bike lanes and everything else you want. And having premiums that don't cover claims is what creates the budget freezes that are impacting staff and students right now. This is not sustainable.

I totally agree. Folks are going to have to start picking what they want. You can’t get pay raises, low cost premiums w/ gold level health insurance and pensions plus all the other things needed to fund the system without revenue in the county.

You think teachers just “get” pensions? They pay into the pension system every single paycheck and they have no say in it. Most teachers won’t ever see a dime of it bc no one wants to stick around for the 25 years and the amount you can roll over into a 401k after leaving is laughable. Stop acting like you have any idea what you’re talking about because you clearly don’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:JFC. If we just stopped paying all of the redundant CO staff (as a teacher, every single decision they have pushed down on us in the past 4 years just shows they have not stepped into a classroom unless it was a photo op) and exposed/didn’t pay for all those 6 figure admin positions who are on admin leave…we could solve a lot of this budget mess.

Also, MCPS Central this year decided to spend who knows how much on Remind and even more on Remind PD when we already have 10 different ways to contact parents….
This is an example of central office not talking to teachers. They are taking away GoGuardian which costs 200k and they decided to add Remind plus money for remind trainings??

Someone’s making over 100k for “coordinator of out of school time” meaning they pay people who work after school and that’s about it. 12 month position that could easily be handed over to someone else already in HR. There’s way too many positions that are so unnecessary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Btw the MCPS budget includes $40 million to plug the anticipated gap in the health insurance fund for employees. In other words, they already know the employer and employee premiums won't be enough to cover claims. Instead of working with the union to address this issue (by lowering costs and/or raising premiums), they are asking for millions from county taxpayers and threatening to cut services for students if we don't pay.

They need to change insurance plans and charge more for premiums like the county does and most employers.

That is a double-edged sword. The staffing crisis, particularly special ed teachers, paras, and SLPs, is only getting worse. Many people are very unhappy. And some of those unhappy people are only staying in the job because they feel handcuffed by having good insurance. If it gets expensive and worse, I promise you more people will quit, because they already wanted to and the last reason to put up with the garbage will be gone. They also already sold this year's change from CareFirst to Cigna as a way to get the same coverage for cheaper and appear to have gotten that spectacularly wrong or had one pulled over on them by Cigna, so why should anyone trust them to know what they're doing with this?

MCPS has low premiums relative to other public employees.

For example at MCPS a 12 month employee with a spouse and kids pays between $130 and $150 biweekly for a POS plan depending on whether they do the health screening thing. County government employees (which include bus drivers, firefighters, police, corrections, and social workers) pay $190 biweekly. Part of it is that county employees pay 20% of the cost and MCPS employees pay 17% (though it's actually going to be less than 17% since the premiums aren't covering the total and general dollars are being used to make up the difference).

I don't think some of you realize that money doesn't grow on trees? You can't have cheap insurance AND get the pay increases you want AND get money to pay for all the renovations you want and have the county pay for all the roads and bike lanes and everything else you want. And having premiums that don't cover claims is what creates the budget freezes that are impacting staff and students right now. This is not sustainable.

I totally agree. Folks are going to have to start picking what they want. You can’t get pay raises, low cost premiums w/ gold level health insurance and pensions plus all the other things needed to fund the system without revenue in the county.

You think teachers just “get” pensions? They pay into the pension system every single paycheck and they have no say in it. Most teachers won’t ever see a dime of it bc no one wants to stick around for the 25 years and the amount you can roll over into a 401k after leaving is laughable. Stop acting like you have any idea what you’re talking about because you clearly don’t.

Then you should advocate to get rid of the pension and switch to a 401k plan. A lot of teachers DO get the pension which is precisely why it costs so much money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Btw the MCPS budget includes $40 million to plug the anticipated gap in the health insurance fund for employees. In other words, they already know the employer and employee premiums won't be enough to cover claims. Instead of working with the union to address this issue (by lowering costs and/or raising premiums), they are asking for millions from county taxpayers and threatening to cut services for students if we don't pay.

They need to change insurance plans and charge more for premiums like the county does and most employers.

That is a double-edged sword. The staffing crisis, particularly special ed teachers, paras, and SLPs, is only getting worse. Many people are very unhappy. And some of those unhappy people are only staying in the job because they feel handcuffed by having good insurance. If it gets expensive and worse, I promise you more people will quit, because they already wanted to and the last reason to put up with the garbage will be gone. They also already sold this year's change from CareFirst to Cigna as a way to get the same coverage for cheaper and appear to have gotten that spectacularly wrong or had one pulled over on them by Cigna, so why should anyone trust them to know what they're doing with this?

MCPS has low premiums relative to other public employees.

For example at MCPS a 12 month employee with a spouse and kids pays between $130 and $150 biweekly for a POS plan depending on whether they do the health screening thing. County government employees (which include bus drivers, firefighters, police, corrections, and social workers) pay $190 biweekly. Part of it is that county employees pay 20% of the cost and MCPS employees pay 17% (though it's actually going to be less than 17% since the premiums aren't covering the total and general dollars are being used to make up the difference).

I don't think some of you realize that money doesn't grow on trees? You can't have cheap insurance AND get the pay increases you want AND get money to pay for all the renovations you want and have the county pay for all the roads and bike lanes and everything else you want. And having premiums that don't cover claims is what creates the budget freezes that are impacting staff and students right now. This is not sustainable.

I totally agree. Folks are going to have to start picking what they want. You can’t get pay raises, low cost premiums w/ gold level health insurance and pensions plus all the other things needed to fund the system without revenue in the county.

You think teachers just “get” pensions? They pay into the pension system every single paycheck and they have no say in it. Most teachers won’t ever see a dime of it bc no one wants to stick around for the 25 years and the amount you can roll over into a 401k after leaving is laughable. Stop acting like you have any idea what you’re talking about because you clearly don’t.

Then you should advocate to get rid of the pension and switch to a 401k plan. A lot of teachers DO get the pension which is precisely why it costs so much money.

Young teachers would be much better off with a defined contribution plan, but MCEA always throws them under the bus in negotiations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Btw the MCPS budget includes $40 million to plug the anticipated gap in the health insurance fund for employees. In other words, they already know the employer and employee premiums won't be enough to cover claims. Instead of working with the union to address this issue (by lowering costs and/or raising premiums), they are asking for millions from county taxpayers and threatening to cut services for students if we don't pay.

They need to change insurance plans and charge more for premiums like the county does and most employers.

That is a double-edged sword. The staffing crisis, particularly special ed teachers, paras, and SLPs, is only getting worse. Many people are very unhappy. And some of those unhappy people are only staying in the job because they feel handcuffed by having good insurance. If it gets expensive and worse, I promise you more people will quit, because they already wanted to and the last reason to put up with the garbage will be gone. They also already sold this year's change from CareFirst to Cigna as a way to get the same coverage for cheaper and appear to have gotten that spectacularly wrong or had one pulled over on them by Cigna, so why should anyone trust them to know what they're doing with this?

MCPS has low premiums relative to other public employees.

For example at MCPS a 12 month employee with a spouse and kids pays between $130 and $150 biweekly for a POS plan depending on whether they do the health screening thing. County government employees (which include bus drivers, firefighters, police, corrections, and social workers) pay $190 biweekly. Part of it is that county employees pay 20% of the cost and MCPS employees pay 17% (though it's actually going to be less than 17% since the premiums aren't covering the total and general dollars are being used to make up the difference).

I don't think some of you realize that money doesn't grow on trees? You can't have cheap insurance AND get the pay increases you want AND get money to pay for all the renovations you want and have the county pay for all the roads and bike lanes and everything else you want. And having premiums that don't cover claims is what creates the budget freezes that are impacting staff and students right now. This is not sustainable.

I totally agree. Folks are going to have to start picking what they want. You can’t get pay raises, low cost premiums w/ gold level health insurance and pensions plus all the other things needed to fund the system without revenue in the county.

You think teachers just “get” pensions? They pay into the pension system every single paycheck and they have no say in it. Most teachers won’t ever see a dime of it bc no one wants to stick around for the 25 years and the amount you can roll over into a 401k after leaving is laughable. Stop acting like you have any idea what you’re talking about because you clearly don’t.

Then you should advocate to get rid of the pension and switch to a 401k plan. A lot of teachers DO get the pension which is precisely why it costs so much money.

Exactly. Yes teachers pay into the pension plan but so does the system. I’m sure the system would be thrilled to switch to a 403b/457b plan and be given the option of 1-5% match teacher contributions. A % they control and could adjust depending on the financial situation of the system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Btw the MCPS budget includes $40 million to plug the anticipated gap in the health insurance fund for employees. In other words, they already know the employer and employee premiums won't be enough to cover claims. Instead of working with the union to address this issue (by lowering costs and/or raising premiums), they are asking for millions from county taxpayers and threatening to cut services for students if we don't pay.

They need to change insurance plans and charge more for premiums like the county does and most employers.

That is a double-edged sword. The staffing crisis, particularly special ed teachers, paras, and SLPs, is only getting worse. Many people are very unhappy. And some of those unhappy people are only staying in the job because they feel handcuffed by having good insurance. If it gets expensive and worse, I promise you more people will quit, because they already wanted to and the last reason to put up with the garbage will be gone. They also already sold this year's change from CareFirst to Cigna as a way to get the same coverage for cheaper and appear to have gotten that spectacularly wrong or had one pulled over on them by Cigna, so why should anyone trust them to know what they're doing with this?

MCPS has low premiums relative to other public employees.

For example at MCPS a 12 month employee with a spouse and kids pays between $130 and $150 biweekly for a POS plan depending on whether they do the health screening thing. County government employees (which include bus drivers, firefighters, police, corrections, and social workers) pay $190 biweekly. Part of it is that county employees pay 20% of the cost and MCPS employees pay 17% (though it's actually going to be less than 17% since the premiums aren't covering the total and general dollars are being used to make up the difference).

I don't think some of you realize that money doesn't grow on trees? You can't have cheap insurance AND get the pay increases you want AND get money to pay for all the renovations you want and have the county pay for all the roads and bike lanes and everything else you want. And having premiums that don't cover claims is what creates the budget freezes that are impacting staff and students right now. This is not sustainable.

I totally agree. Folks are going to have to start picking what they want. You can’t get pay raises, low cost premiums w/ gold level health insurance and pensions plus all the other things needed to fund the system without revenue in the county.

You think teachers just “get” pensions? They pay into the pension system every single paycheck and they have no say in it. Most teachers won’t ever see a dime of it bc no one wants to stick around for the 25 years and the amount you can roll over into a 401k after leaving is laughable. Stop acting like you have any idea what you’re talking about because you clearly don’t.

Then you should advocate to get rid of the pension and switch to a 401k plan. A lot of teachers DO get the pension which is precisely why it costs so much money.

I guarantee you the majority of young teachers aren’t sticking around 25 years but are forced to pay into the system. How do you know people haven’t been advocating for this for years? It doesn’t mean we get what we fight for. Welcome to planet earth. Glad you think teachers somehow have way more power than they actually do. Delusional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Btw the MCPS budget includes $40 million to plug the anticipated gap in the health insurance fund for employees. In other words, they already know the employer and employee premiums won't be enough to cover claims. Instead of working with the union to address this issue (by lowering costs and/or raising premiums), they are asking for millions from county taxpayers and threatening to cut services for students if we don't pay.

They need to change insurance plans and charge more for premiums like the county does and most employers.

That is a double-edged sword. The staffing crisis, particularly special ed teachers, paras, and SLPs, is only getting worse. Many people are very unhappy. And some of those unhappy people are only staying in the job because they feel handcuffed by having good insurance. If it gets expensive and worse, I promise you more people will quit, because they already wanted to and the last reason to put up with the garbage will be gone. They also already sold this year's change from CareFirst to Cigna as a way to get the same coverage for cheaper and appear to have gotten that spectacularly wrong or had one pulled over on them by Cigna, so why should anyone trust them to know what they're doing with this?

MCPS has low premiums relative to other public employees.

For example at MCPS a 12 month employee with a spouse and kids pays between $130 and $150 biweekly for a POS plan depending on whether they do the health screening thing. County government employees (which include bus drivers, firefighters, police, corrections, and social workers) pay $190 biweekly. Part of it is that county employees pay 20% of the cost and MCPS employees pay 17% (though it's actually going to be less than 17% since the premiums aren't covering the total and general dollars are being used to make up the difference).

I don't think some of you realize that money doesn't grow on trees? You can't have cheap insurance AND get the pay increases you want AND get money to pay for all the renovations you want and have the county pay for all the roads and bike lanes and everything else you want. And having premiums that don't cover claims is what creates the budget freezes that are impacting staff and students right now. This is not sustainable.

I totally agree. Folks are going to have to start picking what they want. You can’t get pay raises, low cost premiums w/ gold level health insurance and pensions plus all the other things needed to fund the system without revenue in the county.

Exactly. But, they also need to cut out the waste like funding nonprofits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Btw the MCPS budget includes $40 million to plug the anticipated gap in the health insurance fund for employees. In other words, they already know the employer and employee premiums won't be enough to cover claims. Instead of working with the union to address this issue (by lowering costs and/or raising premiums), they are asking for millions from county taxpayers and threatening to cut services for students if we don't pay.

They need to change insurance plans and charge more for premiums like the county does and most employers.

That is a double-edged sword. The staffing crisis, particularly special ed teachers, paras, and SLPs, is only getting worse. Many people are very unhappy. And some of those unhappy people are only staying in the job because they feel handcuffed by having good insurance. If it gets expensive and worse, I promise you more people will quit, because they already wanted to and the last reason to put up with the garbage will be gone. They also already sold this year's change from CareFirst to Cigna as a way to get the same coverage for cheaper and appear to have gotten that spectacularly wrong or had one pulled over on them by Cigna, so why should anyone trust them to know what they're doing with this?

MCPS has low premiums relative to other public employees.

For example at MCPS a 12 month employee with a spouse and kids pays between $130 and $150 biweekly for a POS plan depending on whether they do the health screening thing. County government employees (which include bus drivers, firefighters, police, corrections, and social workers) pay $190 biweekly. Part of it is that county employees pay 20% of the cost and MCPS employees pay 17% (though it's actually going to be less than 17% since the premiums aren't covering the total and general dollars are being used to make up the difference).

I don't think some of you realize that money doesn't grow on trees? You can't have cheap insurance AND get the pay increases you want AND get money to pay for all the renovations you want and have the county pay for all the roads and bike lanes and everything else you want. And having premiums that don't cover claims is what creates the budget freezes that are impacting staff and students right now. This is not sustainable.

I totally agree. Folks are going to have to start picking what they want. You can’t get pay raises, low cost premiums w/ gold level health insurance and pensions plus all the other things needed to fund the system without revenue in the county.

You think teachers just “get” pensions? They pay into the pension system every single paycheck and they have no say in it. Most teachers won’t ever see a dime of it bc no one wants to stick around for the 25 years and the amount you can roll over into a 401k after leaving is laughable. Stop acting like you have any idea what you’re talking about because you clearly don’t.

Then you should advocate to get rid of the pension and switch to a 401k plan. A lot of teachers DO get the pension which is precisely why it costs so much money.

I guarantee you the majority of young teachers aren’t sticking around 25 years but are forced to pay into the system. How do you know people haven’t been advocating for this for years? It doesn’t mean we get what we fight for. Welcome to planet earth. Glad you think teachers somehow have way more power than they actually do. Delusional.

This is what happened to county employees. They need to do the same benefits for all.