SCFA (ongoing) Study of Medical Premium Contributions
Background: The context for the current conversation is this provision of the Agreement reached with the District in Fall and ratified by the SCFA membership in December 2020:
The value of any continuing reduction in the annual cost to the District of faculty unit benefits will be applied as continuing faculty salary improvements. Faculty will study the possible impacts of changes in areas including the following:
Re-structuring of member medical premium contributions (Earliest implementation: Fall 2021 Open Enrollment, to impact calendar year 2022)
Reductions to retiree medical benefits for future hires
One additional factor that could result in continuing faculty salary improvements would be changes to maximum or minimum class size provisions that may positively impact the District’s productivity ratio (AKA “efficiency”).
This agreement establishes the opportunity to study different ways to structure medical premium contributions with the assurance that money stays within our unit. With this in mind, we initiated the discussion with the following goals in mind:
Maintain access to current plans without “punitive” employee contributions and, ideally, without loss in net pay to any member;
Develop a system that is fair to light users (such as employee-only) as well as to those making heavier use of the plans;
Shift some proportion of current compensation dollars from health premiums to the salary schedule, for immediate and/or long-term improvement to earnings, including in retirement.
Ongoing Forum/Taskforce Notes/Updates
Forums 1 and 2:
Thurs. 1.28.21 3:00 p.m.
Fri. 1.29.21. 10:00 a.m.
A total of twenty-one members attended one or both of the forums held on Jan. 28 & 29 to initiate the discussion about the possibility of re-structuring SCFA medical plan premium contributions. These initial forums were convened with non-Kaiser members only, to allow members to speak openly about their interests and to assure members of HMOs and PPOs that there is no intent to eliminate access to these plans, which have monthly premiums higher than the Kaiser plans.