Heh.
A lawsuit brought by retired Little Chute Area School District teachers and the state’s largest teachers’ union has moved to appellate court.
The educators and the Wisconsin Education Association Council argue the school district violated a 2012 collective bargaining agreement when it eliminated a long-term care benefit. The benefit paid for a portion of nursing home stays for employees. It cost the district $72,000 annually. Employees contributed $700 each year to the plan.
The board voted to eliminate the plan in 2013 and put the money back into its general fund. WEAC and the educators filed the lawsuit in 2014.
The school district claims it upheld its end of the contract and was fully within its rights to stop offering the benefit. In June, Outagamie County Judge Mark McGinnis ruled in favor of the school district, paving the way for an appeal.
On the merits of the case, I suspect that the union is going to lose this one. But what struck me was this part:
It cost the district $72,000 annually. Employees contributed $700 each year to the plan.
What a benefit! These kinds of deals is why Act 10 was needed. Only in an environment where the deck is stacked for one side can such things occur.
If the district has 100 employees, that’s $720 per employee. In other words the cost of the negotiated benefit was shared. Also, the benefit paid for long-term care insurance, not “a portion of nursing stays for employees” as you state.
Your article is at best misleading, and most probably intended to perpetuate the notion that public employees and specifically teachers were the cause of our economic problems. If that were the case, one would think Wisconsin would be flourishing following the passage of Act 10.
>If the district has 100 employees, that’s $720 per employee. In other words the cost of the negotiated benefit was shared.
Actually the original article is so ambiguous, I can’t say if it’s $720 per employee, or for all the employees. I also can’t say if the cost was $70000 or employee, or for all the employees. Poor journalism.
>Also, the benefit paid for long-term care insurance, not “a portion of nursing stays for employees” as you state.
You are missing a very important fact here Kathleen… the author of this blog article (Owen) at this website (www.bootsandsabers.com) did not state what you quote and attribute to him. He quoted the article and also created a hyperlink to it at the Post Cresent’s web site. If you have issue with facts in the article, you should contact them – it’s unlikely they would read your comments here.
>Your article is at best misleading, and most probably intended to perpetuate the notion that public employees and specifically teachers were the cause of our economic problems.
Again, the author of the actual article is not likely to be reading your comment at this unrelated website.
With what I’ve read … I hope that you’re not a teacher.
I took from the report that the $700 was an aggregate number. With a district of about 1,300 kids, they have to have over 100 teachers. If 100 teachers were paying $700, then that would be $70k and would cover the complete cost of the program (almost). If the cost was born 100% by the teachers, then why would the district cancel it? OTOH, if ALL of the teachers contributed $700 total for a $72k expense, it is lopsided. Plus, having been in the private sector for 20 years, I can’t imagine any employee paying $700 per year for a nursing home benefit unless they were actually in a nursing home. Too many people would opt out.
Average annual premium for a single male age 55 takiing out this kind of insurance is $1060 a year – like life insurance, the younger you are when you enroll, the lower the premium. http://www.kampscpa.com/faq-longtermcare.php
My research shows this insurance was purchased through WEA – maybe there are cheaper options in the private market.
According to Board minutes, the employee contribution was $700 per year. Not everyone needs LTCI – it depends on your retirement income & assets & what kind of estate you wish to leave. At a recent retirement seminar, the financial planners said that such insurance is of dubious value – advised that before retirement one should max out their home equity line of credit so that if they need to self-fund such care, they can do it without being forced to convert retirement funds to cash when market is down or when the tax implications may not be as conducive. http://www.littlechute.k12.wi.us/cms_files/resources/Brd.%20Mtg.Min.%205-13-13.pdf