Sunday, April 25, 2010

Living up to the hype

Last December seven board members put their reputations on the line by rushing through a vote on a new insurance broker, Selzer Company. I'll spare you the details behind this controversial appointment but you can refresh your memory by reading my post from last December. Now it is time for Selzer to prove themselves worthy of the support given them by members of this board.

If Selzer's name sounds familiar to you, it could be from a recent Courier Times article entitled Board members get lucrative rewards, which reported on companies who prospered during the Lower Bucks Hospital bankruptcy. Clearly this company knows how to make money.

Earlier this year we learned that our health care costs are scheduled to increase by 19% for the upcoming school year. So far we have not heard of any progress made by Selzer to negotiate that increase down. The last time we went through a similar situation under our old insurance broker, they were able to negotiate a double digit increase down to 5%. Now we need Selzer to come through and surpass the efforts of the broker they replaced. After all, if Selzer cannot do better than the former broker, then what was the point of replacing them in the first place?

If Selzer can match the efforts of their predecessor, we can look forward to savings between $1.5 to $2 million. I don't have to tell you what that means to closing our budget gap for next year. So I encourage every reader to contact the board members from their area who voted for Selzer, and emphasize the importance that this partner comes through for us.
.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Political contributors will always gain favor. All we can hope for is that they will be capable. How prophetic that your efforts to enact a pay to play policy were defeated by this board, and now student programs may suffer as a direct result.
You don't strike me as the 'I told you so' type but go ahead and say it. You have earned it, and those board members who approved this broker deserve to hear it.
Please don't ever stop doing the right thing, William. There are so few public servants we can depend on.

srodos said...

I attended the meeting on health insurance. The first statement he made was that he would easily save the district at least 1 million dollars in premiums the first year.

William O'Connor said...

I had heard the same claim from someone else, srodos, so thank you for confirming.