District 86 Approves Raises, Changes to Health Plan

The District 86 School Board voted Monday to approve a four-year collective bargaining agreement that gives district employees a 5 percent raise over the next two years.

But the raise comes at a price: The contract includes cuts to the district's health insurance plan, which will mean higher out-of-pocket costs for medical care.

Those expenses include higher deductibles, co-pays and out-of-pocket limits. For the first time, however, employees will have the chance to opt in or out of the district health plan during an annual open enrollment period. Previously, District 86 employees could only move in or out of the plan when they were hired or had a life-changing event such as a marriage.

The district, which includes and , expects to spend just more than $14 million on employee benefits during the 2010-11 school year, according to the 2011 fiscal year budget. That number includes not just health insurance but also retirement and other benefits.

Because employees will now be able to opt in or out of the health plan on a regular basis, Kathy Wynn, president of Hinsdale South's division of the Hinsdale High School Teacher Association, said it's unclear how much money the district will save through the health plan reductions. The new plan also provides a greater incentive for retired employees to opt for the state health insurance for educators rather than stay on the district's plan.

Wynn said the Teacher Association was pleased overall with the agreement, which resulted from a series of meetings that began last spring and continued through the start of this school year.

"Given the current economic climate and knowing that other districts have had anywhere from no raises to significant cuts in staff, we feel very fortunate that we didn't have to realize any cuts in staff and were able to get a modest [salary] increase," she said. The average teacher salary for the district is $99,194, according to the 2010 School Report Card.

The last collective bargaining agreement, which the board negotiated in 2006, produced a 17 percent raise over the course of four years, Wynn said. Although the new contract resulted in a smaller raise, Wynn said that the Teacher Association respected the fact that the district wants to keep its reserve funds at at least 21 percent of the district's operating expenditures.

"We know everyone else in the community is short in the pocket book too," she said. "It's always nice to get more, but there's a balance. If we were going to put our foot down, what's going to end up happening is programs will be cut and there would be a larger number of students in each class. We didn't want to see that."

The contract leaves a window open for the Teacher Association to renegotiate raises and benefits for the 2012-13 and 2013-14 school years.

Superintendent Nicholas Wahl was unavailable for comment but released a statement that said the district was pleased with the contract.

"This agreement maintains the stature of our highly accomplished and respected teaching staff and sustains the Board's budget and long-range financial goals," he said.