Why is there such an uproar over the Senate proposal to eliminate the $500 health insurance supplement for school support staff? Via PinkDome, here’s one reason:
Everyone with health insurance is used to seeing their premiums increase every year, but Comal School District employees are about to get socked.
Starting Sept. 1, the employee share of health insurance premiums will jump by as much as 180 percent for similar coverage.
“We’re trying to do the best we can for the district’s employees,” said Trustee Charles Burt. “It’s not just you going up on costs, it’s everywhere.”
School Board President Dan Krueger noted that the district will increase its contribution from $226 a month to $250, to help offset the cost, but said he knows it will still be a bitter pill to swallow.
“It hurts me to know we are going to present this to our employees,” he said.
Ouch. No wonder teachers are standing with support staff on this. They know how wrong this is.
Matt and PFAW have some other reading on the state of affairs. I’ve got a post on Kuff’s World that tries to sum up where we are now. And just to really brighten your day, the CPPP says that the current path of using state revenues to pay for lowering property taxes to $1 will force a 16% cut in state spending in 2008-09.
We ought to know more about where this session is going by the end of the day today. Stay tuned.
UPDATE: Nate excerpts from the CPPP analysis.
The more taxpayers there are without health insurance, the less empathy there will be for government employees who are losing it. The same goes for pensions and any other employee benefits that are disappearing in the private sector. Also the distrust by taxpayers (and government employees) will grow toward those government employees who have managed to retain their insurance benefits at uninsured taxpayers expense.