Benefits Advisory Committee - August 8, 2008

HISD brought forward it's recommendation's for the 2009 benefit year. The good news is that there will be no premium increase for employees. The bad news is there will be higher out of pocket and point of service costs for many employees. The changes are as follows: (from the 8/14/08 HISD board agenda item G-12)

• Implement a fee schedule for non participating (non-network) medical facilities.
  


• Pre-certification required for certain high technology radiology services.
  


• Modify the co-pay amounts for all medical plans. For the fifteen specialty areas where Aetna has designated Axcel certified specialists, the co-pay amount will remain the same as is currently in place if the participant utilizes an Axcel certified specialist. For other in-network specialists in these categories, the plan co-pay will be reduced by 10 percent.

What this means is for in-network specialists, Aetna has designated a certain number of them as Aexcel certified specialists. In order to continue to receive the same benefits, a participant must use these doctors. If a participant use non-certified in-network specialists, the district will reduce it's coinsurance contribution by 10% and for open-access participants (there are over 7000 of these) the co-pay will increase from $40 to $50. We asked the district for two things:

1. What was the criteria used by Aetna to designate Aexcel certified specialists?



2. How many of the total in-network doctors will be certified?

HISD agreed to get us that specific information and the representative from Aetna stated that the information will be available on Aetna Navigator. They did state however, that no Kelsey doctor will be a certified specialist.

The district is also going to stop paying the full amount billed by several non-network facilities. This is a real problem. It seems several of these facilities charge an outrageous amount for their procedures. Far more than the market norm. In the past HISD has paid these bills in full. The proposed change will only pay these facilities the market norm. If the facility continues to charge the higher rates, the participant will be responsible. It is the thinking of the district, Aetna, and Mercer, that in all likelihood these facilities will lower their rates and possibly join the network. The Federation cannot oppose a plan that is intended to eliminate price gouging.

These changes are proposed in order to make up a projected $9 million deficit. We are extremely uncomfortable with the Aexcel designation. It forces participants into a preferred network of even fewer doctors, will likely force participants to give up a doctor who is familiar with them in exchange for a stranger, and saves only around one million dollars. We suggest that instead, the district look at eliminating the Choice POS II option entirely. There are only around 900 participants and can save up to $2.25 million. These participants can move to the Consumer Plus plan with very little disruption in their service and receive improved benefits in several areas.

August 7, 2008 Consultation

HOUSTON FEDERATION OF TEACHERS

Please include the following to the August 7, 2008 Instructional Consultation agenda:


1. Counseling Positions

We are experiencing an alarming number of complaints from school counselors who have been told during the summer that they are being re-assigned as teachers under the 10 month teaching contract. This results in a very expensive contract change for the counselors. Because these contract changes occurred during the summer and not at least 45 days prior to the last day of instruction, the Federation expects the district to honor the counselor contract for the coming school year.

Audrey Gomez stated that if the counselor was not notified of the contract change in time, he/she would receive the full counselor pay but is expected to work the full eleven month contract.

2. Procedures for displaced teachers

There are a number of teachers, primarily from Sam Houston HS, who though under contract, have had their positions eliminated and are teachers without a school. What is the established HISD procedure for these employees to follow? Where do they report on August 11th and what will be their duties? August 11th is four days away; we must have answers now!

Audrey Gomez stated that displaced Sam Houston teachers are to report to the Board Auditorium in the central administration building at 8:00 AM Monday. She does not know of teachers from other schools who are displaced, but if they exist, they are to report to their old school.

3. Sam Houston HS

We have several questions regarding Sam Houston:

1. Where do displaced teachers report on August 11th?
2. Have all the administrators from last year been removed from the campus?
3. Is there a written guarantee of sign-on bonuses being given to teachers who transfer into Sam Houston?

4. Will all employee rights such as duty free planning, duty free lunch, 7 hour and 45 minute workday, and 187 day duty schedule be honored?

We spent so much time on question 4 we did not get to questions 2 and 3. Audrey stated that at this time there is no plan to extend the school day at Sam but it may happen at the 9th Grade Academy at some point. She did say that teachers at Ryan MS have signed agreements (she wouldn’t say contracts) to extend their work day 1 hour, a maximum of 5 hours a week, and would be paid hourly at their daily rate. It is mandatory at Ryan.

4. Reimbursement for expenses

We received the following communication from a member:

“I need some advice. I was expected to visit a school in NYC June 3 -5. My secretary turned in my receipts on June 9. On my school's part they did everything right and in a timely fashion. It is now July 30 and HISD has yet to reimburse me for my trip which is close to $500. I have e-mailed them, my principal has spoken with them, with the response that they "were working on it." This is ridiculous and interest has accrued on my credit which I had to use to pay for the hotel.What steps may I take? The accounting department has done this over and over again to folks, including my principal. The last time I turned in receipts it took two months and they did not reimburse me for all of my receipts.”

What can we do about this?

I don’t remember the name of the women who spoke on this item but basically she said that the breakdown in most cases is in the school office. In this particular case, her office has not yet received the receipts from the school. This whole system is slow, cumbersome, and vulnerable to human error. Our best advice is to tell members not to up front their own money.

5. Opening of School

As the school year opens there are several negative issues principals can avoid simply by routinely following the rules:

. Classes should be balanced early and class sizes should adhere to legal limits where a law applies and reasonable limits where there is no legal mandate.

· Lesson plans exist to facilitate instruction. They are not a vehicle to document that every imaginable rule or regulation is being followed. The law requires plans to be “brief and general”. Let’s follow the law.

· All teacher’s are entitled to 30 minutes of duty-free lunch periods.

· All teacher’s are entitled to 450 minutes planning time during a 10 day period. That planning time belongs to the teacher and there can be no assigned duty during that time.

· The teacher contract specifies a 187 day work year. Those days are approved by the Board of Education when the calendar is adopted. There can be no required duty beyond the contract year.

· The length of the teacher workday is 7 hours and 45 minutes.

· All employees are entitled to all supplies necessary to do their jobs.

· There must be an elected Shared Decision Making Committee in place and actually functioning.

We have probably left some important issues off of the list, but the point is that these laws and policies exist to facilitate and improve instruction. Employees who demand that these policies be followed have the best interests of the students, the school, and HISD at heart. They certainly should never be subject to administrative retaliation or made to feel that they are not team players. Common decency is still a core value of HISD.

Mark Smith agreed that these items do not need to be issues this year. He said he will draft a memo to be sent to principals. I’ll remind him next month.


*Michelle Polla substituted for Karen Garza, Mark Smith ran the meeting

*Linda Murray and I represented HFT

*Chuck Robinson represented CHT

* HEA was not present