School board didn’t want to merge health insurance plans with county
MACHIPONGO – On Monday, county and school representatives of Northampton County had met to talk about the school board’s decision, which did not want to merge health insurance plans with the county.
When contacted on Tuesday, Richard Drury as chairman of the Northampton County School Board says that our decision is made strictly on the cost impact on dependent coverage. Therefore, there will be a total fiscal year savings of $32,200 in the employee only tier and $29,600 rise in the dependency tiers with the combined health plan, equaling to a net savings to employees of $2,600 in FY 12.
Drury told that although the school board chose not to merge the health insurance plans this year, the school board would revisit looking at combining health insurance plans in the future. Furthermore, the idea to speculate merging the plans came from the Shared Services Committee between the county and the school board to find ways to keep taxpayer money through “improving efficiencies and economies of scale.
Supervisor Richard Tankard said that both sides had learned a lot going through the process and both had gained a better idea of what could be offered to their employees and he thought they were “paving the way to combine insurance plans”.