Former Lyndonville BOE member believes health insurance plan would have benefitted school district

Editor:

As I am no longer an active member of the Lyndonville Board of Education, I believe it’s important to ensure our parents, teachers, taxpayers and all school employees are aware of some things at the Lyndonville school district.

I wanted so badly to let everyone know the details regarding the negotiations I was part of with the Lyndonville Teachers Association (LTA) during the election, but was I advised to wait until after the election. At the request of the LTA and district, I was nominated by my fellow board members to lead the effort of procuring comparable or better health benefits.

Here are some things about the health insurance proposed that no one wants you to know:

1. No previous benefits would have changed, due to the HRA setup. The only thing that would have changed was the cost (much lower) to the school and employee. There would have been an additional step involved in submitting an expense to the HRA, but for the hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings for the district and premium savings to the teachers, and other school employees, it was well worth it. I also had the rates locked for 3 years!
2. Everyone would have been able to choose an individual, two-person, single parent and children, or a full family plan. Currently, only certain employees get family benefits. This would have been expanded to all employees! Under the current plan, a single parent must purchase a full family plan. The new plan was half the cost, as it was set up for these situations.
3. Dental was part of the new plan! There is no dental plan currently.
4. Retirees would have been fully covered as well, before they turn 65, and then with a supplemental plan after 65. This was never proposed to change. This was a lie from the LTA president.
5. It was brilliant. If NYS schools used this strategy statewide, there would be hundreds of millions of dollars available for budgets.

Teachers/taxpayer’s/substitutes/custodians:

You were not told all the facts. These details were all part of negotiations, and no one wanted you to know. The one day you were allowed in the room, the LTA president requested that nothing be discussed outside of the proposed specific plan. We had three different unions in the room, and some employees that were not part of any union. The LTA’s request was clearly a way of suppressing information.

The union president was so desperate to ensure he had new board members, that he personally lied (I have the texts) to retirees stating they would no longer have any health coverage under any new plan. He used these scare tactics to get people to vote a certain way. LTA members followed along, calling every retired teacher in the district.

I think you should wonder “who is negotiating for the taxpayers and school district now?”

Another fact is that the school business administrator admitted he tried to delay getting information to the teams (licensed insurance brokers) I had working on this for me as a personal favor. No one at the district was any help at all, until I had the full support of board members Ted Lewis, Sue Hrovat, Kristin Nicholson and Harold Suhr.

Anyone who knows anything about insurance knows that insurance cost reduction is all about spreading risk. We were trying to join a pool of millions versus the pool of just about 2,000 the district is currently in.

It’s disappointing to have served six years on a board, and the relationships and trust I thought I had built, got completely ignored. People I called friends literally avoided me over this. There was enough money to lower taxes, make our teachers the highest paid in the county, and provide full and better benefits to all the school employees. These efforts resulted in a teacher’s union president not giving their union full details on the proposed plan with the HRA and dental, interference by the district business administrator, and the teachers union literally endorsing other candidates for school board.

I have all the information on the proposed insurance and would be happy to share with anyone. I also have the text messages sent by the LTA president to retired school employees stating I was trying to take away their benefits. He clearly never gave NYSET all the proposed information either. Their comparison lacked the details of the proposed HRA.

While insurance is complicated, contracts are contracts. We can’t change insurance unless the benefits are comparable or better. They were better.

I think the question to ask now is why the union president wanted new board members so bad that they passed on the largest raise and expansion of benefits they would have ever seen?

I understand some just didn’t want change, as they are comfortable with what they have. I can respect that. It is the lying about what was truly trying to be accomplished that has me worried for our district.

Steven Vann

Lyndonville