School district employees will have more money in their paycheck, thanks to the Lee County school board paying the employee’s base plan entire cost, while adding an additional $4,000 for dependent care.

Insurance and Benefits Management Director Bonnie McFarland said in a presentation dated on July 25, 2022, the bottom line showed that the district had the lowest total premium for insurance out of governmental insurances, as well as the lowest employer contribution and the highest employee cost for insurance.

“Changes have begun,” she said, adding that the board contribution has increased.

That increase went from $8,104.80 to $9,213.60, plus $4,000.80 for dependent subsidy, equaling $13,214.40 for those who have dependent coverage. McFarland said that more than $13,000 goes towards the entire coverage on an annual basis.

According to a press release, employees pay just $26 a month for a higher plan. That increases to $41.21 when adding children to a plan a month for the base plan, or $83.76 a month for a higher plan.

The presentation broke down the employee savings based on the three different plans. The employee savings per paycheck ranged from $114.50 to $318.05.

“We are making significant progress in the realm where other employees are,” McFarland said.

Bernier said the board did a fabulous job in not only raising the amount of money for employer contributions, but took care of additional costs associated with medical inflation.

“Compensation package, it doesn’t always come in a straight raise. This is a legitimate money in a person’s pocket they can utilize” he said.

With the new employer contribution, the School District of Lee County surpasses Broward County with employee only and family funding at $8,919.60. The district comes closer to Polk County with employee only and family funding at $9,288; Collier County with an employee only and family funding at $9,681 and Orange County with employee only and family funding at $9,288.60.

Although Hillsborough County and Pinellas County have lower employee only funding at $7,934.28 and $7,862, their family funding is $18,643.20 for Hillsborough and $23,176 for Pinellas.

As far as other Lee governmental entities, the School District of Lee County still lags behind. The City of Cape Coral has a $11,806.32 employee only funding and $13,823.40 for family funding; Florida Gulf Coast University has a $9,161.98 for employee only funding and $20,252.40 for family funding; Lee Government has $13,908 for employee only funding and $21,960 for family funding and the Lee County’s Sheriff Office has $10,064.04 for employee only funding and $20,707.92 for family funding.

McFarland said open enrollment for 2023 ends on Feb. 10. She said only 25 percent of the district’s employees have completed their selections.

“We need to get that number a little higher,” McFarland said.

She said through PeopleSoft, employees have the option to purchase different insurances, which will be calculated on the fly to show how much they would spend out of pocket based on a selected plan.

“You can do that as often as you would like in the open enrollment period,” McFarland said.

The district is entering the Invitation to Negotiate for the 2024 open enrollment for medical, dental, vision and disability short-term and long-term insurance; group legal plan and employee assistance program.

McFarland said when they go to the market there will be a request to match current plan designs; proposed enhancements to current plan designs and to propose alternative plan designs. There will also be a medical insurance request for self-insured, fully-insured, prescription carve-in and carve-out options.

The carve-in and carve-out plans provide an option to mix and match a medical plan with a prescription plan. McFarland said they can take those two and make a plan for the district.

The Invitation to Negotiate process will ultimately end with open enrollment 2024. She said the options will be brought before the board to vote upon in September or October this year.

“This is sort of a promise made and a promise kept,” Superintendent Dr. Christopher Bernier said. “This is a complicated issue, the market in which we shop our insurance.”

Board member Chris Patricca said the district has difficulty in how they shop their insurance because the market is so limited due to the structure of Lee Health.

“It does make it tremendously difficult to get real competition in Lee County because of the structure of Lee Health,” she said.