The Marysville Board of Education has agreed to a two-year contract extension with the Marysville Education Association (MEA), impacting employee insurance plans while guaranteeing pay increases.
Marysville School District Treasurer Todd Johnson said since insurance claims are looking high over the last few years, the contract is stipulating how many plans it will offer to employees to control future insurance rates. He said with how the contract was worded before, “that extreme increase was going to lead to a disproportionate increase on staff.”
Johnson said staff members will now have two insurance plans to select, starting Jan. 1, 2019. By fall 2019, there will be only one option. The insurance plan employees can keep until fall 2019 is “a traditional PPO,” and the only remaining plan afterward will be “a variation” of the traditional PPO and high deductible plans.
“One of the reasons we were in the situation we were in was because language was complicated, and both sides could see some of the language and see it from different ways,” Johnson said. “We wanted to come up with something that was fair. With the three different plans and the way it was structured, it was hard to come up with something that treated everyone equally.”
He said the remaining plan after fall 2019 will be 93-percent covered by the board of education, and the rest by the employee.
Johnson said the stipends given to employees and their spouses who go on their own health insurance plans have been removed. He said the board felt it was fair to staff members that this money would be going toward reducing insurance premiums instead.
“We felt like those stipends were created within a time when our insurance would have been more along the lines of that Cadillac plan, which it is not now. It’s a good plan comparatively, but it’s not a plan that people are trying to get on at all costs.”
Johnson said the agreement also implements new language that would reduce the amount of employees taking time off on the same day as other employees, making it hard to find enough substitutes to cover.
The contract also agreed to removing the salary bonus system after June 30, 2019, which according to a press release, will end up “saving the district up to $200,000 per year.”
The press release also states that with the contract extension set for two years, teachers will receive a 2.5-percent pay increase in 2020 and a 3-percent increase in 2021.
MEA co-president Kevin Brandfass said he was pleased with how negotiations with the school board went. He noted none of the requests made by the MEA were omitted from the agreement.
“It was a good, collaborative process,” Brandfass said. “We were able to get a lot accomplished with some new language regarding insurance that, moving forward, makes things a lot better.”
Brandfass said the MEA has a good relationship with the school board and administration, and that helped both side “work things out.”
Assistant Superintendent Jonathan Langhals gave an update on the Bunsold stadium project.
On another topic, Langhals said the layout of water and sewage, the water line installation, storm structures, building foundation, bleacher footers, below-grade block for the concessions building and the curb for the turf field are all complete.
He said the project is ready to move forward if weather permits.
“Keep your fingers crossed if mother nature cooperates with us,” Langhals said.
He said the project will continue to work on low-voltage electrical work and light bases.
Langhals said the project is a little behind on schedule, as it’s been “one of the wettest falls in Ohio’s history,” He said he’s collaborating with architects and contractors to make up time, “but at the same time, we’re not looking to jeopardize the product.”
Johnson said the district is now back from a formula-funded district to being a capped-funded one. The formula-funded plan would have meant the district could get more funding if enrollment grows, and less if enrollment drops. Johnson reported the district was now a formula-funded district at November’s meeting.
“The good news of it is you know we’re getting all of the money we possibly could be getting,” he said. “The bad news is we should be getting more, so I guess that was short-lived.”
The board will meet at 5:30 p.m. Jan. 7 for its organizational meeting at the Board of Education office. The next board meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Jan. 17 at Navin Elementary School.