This week, legislation was introduced that would create a statewide group health insurance plan for school employees. House Bill 1881 would require that all school districts participate in the statewide program, with the exception of Philadelphia, which would have the choice to opt-in. Frank Farry is one of 70+ representatives sponsoring the legislation.
HB 1881 creates a Health Care Trust Board with authority to conduct a study of current school employee health care offerings throughout the state, and to develop a statewide plan designed to reduce costs to school districts. The Board will then submit a final plan to the General Assembly, where it must be disapproved by the House, the Senate and the Governor to stop the plan.
This legislation also contains language allowing school districts to reject participation in the statewide plan within 60 days of its creation, with the approval of a majority of school board members and a majority of employees to be covered by the program.
This legislation has the potential to be a HUGE asset for Neshaminy. Not only would it likely reduce our costs for health care coverage, it may also help to remove a real sticking point from our current contract negotiations.
Now if we could only get Harrisburg to sponsor a bill empowering employees to make their own pension plan investment decisions.
(Credit PSBA.org for information used in this post) .
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We have enjoyed a small but welcome break from hiring controversies in Neshaminy, but we must never lose sight of keeping politics out of the personnel process. A school district in Luzerne County has decided to do more than talk about eliminating board interference in hiring decisions; they are asking the Pennsylvania School Boards Association (PSBA) to adopt it as part of its platform.
The preliminary data is in and it looks like Neshaminy avoided a repeat of last year's darkest days moment by achieving Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in accordance with NCLB requirements. Neshaminy met 70 of 72 targets, with our only missed goals being the high school IEP subgroup in Math and English. All schools in the District made AYP with the exception of NHS, but that did not prevent Neshaminy from achieving AYP as a district.
This week, legislation was introduced that would create a statewide group health insurance plan for school employees. House Bill 1881 would require that all school districts participate in the statewide program, with the exception of Philadelphia, which would have the choice to opt-in. Frank Farry is one of 70+ representatives sponsoring the legislation.
State Rep Frank Farry joined 4 other Bucks County representatives to oppose a Senate GOP budget plan that would have cut expenses including some of the Governor's educational spending. The bill now goes back to the Senate, and all sides predicted a six-member, bipartisan conference committee of senators and representatives would be appointed to attempt to find common ground.