I think I spoke about this recently here on the contract with the Teacher’s Association. The reason why it was always less expensive to self insure was that the combination of benefits in our contract did not meet any of the standard insurance plans; not a problem with the size of our pool. In the new contract the Teacher’s Association brought forward the idea of standardizing the benefits to save money. We both agreed to the standardized benefit mix and to re-examine the private vs. public insurance issue with them in the next year as a joint committee.As for inviting people from the BOF, we always could. However, as statutorily required we invited a BOF representative to the teacher’s contract negotiations and that representative attended a good share of the negotiations. That didn’t in any way shield us from people criticizing the new contract. This was even though we got the Town of Woodstock a contract that is arguably tied with having the least amount of financial increase than any other town in the state that had recently settled on the date of our mediation.
You (to Newcomer) are not confusing me, you have the correct person. However, I’m not sure who we are supposed to delegate to. The school administration are a skeleton staff and they are already fully committed. We have trouble getting together for the BOE committee meetings we already have due to outside commitments. Since August I’ve been able to get everyone together for a grand total of one Personnel and Finance committee meeting. You don’t have to run for the BOE but we would love to have volunteers help us, particularly for community communications. You seem to have an interest in this area and we would appreciate having your help and support.
Thanks,
Kevin
This post represents my personal opinions and in no way should be considered an official act of the BOE or that I am speaking on behalf of the BOE in any way.
