QuotEDThe place where I think we have
potential is in administrative and support services.
Mildred Warner, Cornell professor, on what kinds of
governmentalcollaboration hold the most opportunity
to save money (page 19)
School PolicyReorganizationmeeting tipsPAGE 9
CenterfoldMusic teacherwins a GrammyPAGES 10-11
Schools TodayThe Common Coreand parentsPAGE 17
ON BOARDThe Voice of Public School Leadership
By Paul HeiserSENIOR RESEARCH ANALYST
More than a fifth of school districts inNew York State could be
whacked with anew tax on teacher health plans in a fewyears under a
provision of the Obamacarelaw.
If health care premiums for teacherscontinue to increase at
recent rates (5.6percent annually for individual coverageand 5.7
percent for family coverage), asmany as 157 districts would have to
paypenalties under the Cadillac tax provi-sion of the Affordable
Care Act of 2010,according to a NYSSBA analysis. Becausehealth
plans of all employees not justteachers are affected, the actual
numberof districts impacted by the tax may beeven greater.
The Cadillac tax goes into effect in2018 and will apply to
health insurancepremiums that exceed certain amounts $10,400 for an
individual plan and$27,500 for a family plan. If plans exceed
those thresholds, employers must pay a 40percent tax on the
excess premiums foreach participant in the plan.
For example, if a districts individualcoverage plan has a
premium of $11,200,the district would be required to pay a
40percent tax on the amount by which thepremium exceeded the
threshold in thiscase, $800 multiplied by the number of
plan enrollees. The tax was designed to discourage
employers from offering high-cost healthplans, as well as to
reduce incentives foremployees to overuse medical servicesunder
deluxe health plans.
NYSSBA estimates the cost of taxpenalties on teacher health
plans for af-fected school districts and BOCES in New
York in 2018 alone will total $22 million,or $147,000 per
district. That assumes cur-rent coverage plans remain in place
andpremiums continue to climb at the samerate as the last five
years. The analysis isbased on data on health insurance premi-ums
reported by school districts when re-sponding to an annual survey
conductedby NYSSBA in 2013.
The possibility of generous benefitsresulting in a tax penalty
for school dis-tricts is likely to cast a shadow over con-tract
negotiations in many school districtsin the next few years.
The topic needs to be broached withbargaining units in a
constructive way, saidTracie Lopardi, a partner in the HarrisBeach
law firm. Districts should ap-proach bargaining units and explain
thatthere are limited funds that can be used foremployee
compensation, and funds thatare spent on Cadillac health
insuranceand the associated excise tax are funds thatcannot be used
to preserve jobs, programsand/or provide other compensation,
shesaid.
See related story, page 7.
NYSSBA analysis
Districts vulnerable to Cadillac tax
NEW YORK STATE SCHOOL BOARDS ASSOCIATION www.nyssba.org Vol. 15,
No. 9May 12, 2014
All teachers, administrators need training on ELLs: SED
By Eric D. RandallEDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Draft state regulations will require allteachers and
administrators to receiveprofessional development on the needs
ofEnglish language learners, includingtraining on language
acquisition and theability to work effectively with
diversestudents, according to the State Educa-tion Department.
The proposed regulations are in-tended to make it clear that
placing ELLsin an English-speaking environment(called immersion) is
unacceptable un-less there is a system of supports that willenable
these students to succeed academi-cally.
All school boards and district/school leaders are responsible
for ensur-ing that the academic, linguistic, social,and emotional
needs of ELLs are ad-
dressed, according to a supporting statedocument called
Blueprint For EnglishLanguage Learners Success.
Specifically, boards should provide
a clear vision for student success that in-cludes high
expectations for ELL student
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See ELLs, page 4
If health insurance premiums for individual teachers continue to
increase at 5.6 percent annually,the average premium will hit the
Cadillac tax threshold in 2019.
Insurance premiums headedfor tax penalty threshold
Source: NYSSBA research
C a d i l l a c T a x T h r e s h o l d ( 2 0 1 8 )
New sport Senior Matthew Mahoski, a cheerleader in Oyster
Bay,demonstrates prowess in New Yorks newest sport. Seestory, page
3. E Photo courtesy of Oyster Bay-East NorwichCentral School
District
N e w Y o r k S t a t e S c h o o l B o a r d s A s s o c i a t
i o n | w w w . n y s s b a . o r g
Cadillac tax to be bargaining issueBy Paul Heiser
SENIOR RESEARCH ANALYST
Excise taxes are imposed by governments on spe-cific goods or
services to raise revenue, discourage spe-cific kinds of behavior,
or both. Taxes on gasoline, forexample, raise revenue that can be
used to maintainroads and discourage people from buying
gas-guzzlingvehicles.
Another example is the so-called Cadillac taxthat was included
in the federal Affordable Care Act commonly known as Obamacare to
discourage em-ployers from offering health plans with benefits
sogenerous that they might prompt employees to overusehealth
care.
Under the Cadillac tax, employers will be as-sessed a hefty 40
percent tax on employer-providedhealth insurance plans that exceed
certain thresholdamounts: $10,400 for an individual plan and
$27,500for a family plan.
According to a NYSSBA analysis, as many as 157school districts
could be hit with the Cadillac tax in2018 if current plans remain
in place and health carecosts continue to increase at recent
levels. The analy-sis found that 150 school districts would have
individ-ual premiums in excess of $10,400 and 18 districtswould
have family premiums in excess of $27,500.[Because 11 districts
would pay both taxes, the numberof districts affected is 157.]
The tax would cost the 150 school districts with in-dividual
premiums above $10,400 a total of $22 millionin 2018 and the 18
districts with family premiumsgreater than $27,500 a total of $4
million in 2018, for acombined cost of $26 million.
NYSSBAs analysis relied on information submit-ted by school
districts in response to annual teachercontract surveys conducted
by NYSSBA over the pastfive years. The annual survey asks school
districts fordata on teacher salaries and health insurance
premiums.Because the data are restricted to teachers, the
actualnumber of districts impacted by the Cadillac tax couldbe
greater if administrators and non-teaching staff areincluded.
Based on the survey data, the average annual healthinsurance
premium increase for the past five years was5.6 percent for
individual coverage and 5.7 percent forfamily coverage. By applying
those average increasesto the most recent premium amounts for
2012-13,NYSSBA was able to estimate the 2018 health care premiums
for all districts that responded to the 2013survey.
For each of the impacted school districts, theamount of the tax
was calculated by multiplying theamount of the premium in excess of
the correspondingthreshold amounts by 40 percent, which is the
excisetax rate that the district must pay for each employee.The
amount of the tax was then multiplied by the num-ber of teachers in
each district to arrive at a total dollaramount of the cost of the
tax to each of the affectedschool districts.
Impact on collective bargaining
This is a risk, particularly if districts continue tooffer the
old-fashioned indemnity plans, said JudiKehoe, chief business and
financial officer for the Beth-lehem Central School District in
Albany County. Suchindemnity plans dont carry co-pays, but rather
have de-
ductibles that must be reached before the plan covers100 percent
of the costs. The plans cost more becausethey do not manage access
to care, as is typically donefor plans that use a network of health
care providers.
Bethlehem has finally negotiated all of these typesof plans away
by offering alternate plans that still pro-vide gold-level
benefits, but I know there are a num-ber of other districts that
struggle to negotiate these outof their agreements, said Kehoe.
Although its notcoming until 2018, and while there could yet be
othermodifications, I think it doesnt hurt to remind districtsof
this facet.
While employers in the private, non-unionized sec-tor have
already begun changing their employee bene-fits plans to circumvent
the tax, unionized schooldistricts may be limited by language in
their collectivebargaining agreements.
Law partners Hank Sobota, Eric Wilson and CraigAtlas of the
Ferrara, Fiorenza, Larrison, Barrett andReitz law firm said teacher
unions and school districtshave staked out different positions on
the Cadillac tax.
Districts say that when a law creates new taxes on apreviously
negotiated benefit, the people receiving thebenefit should either
agree to pay the tax or agree to anew version of the health plan
that is below the Cadillactax level, especially considering the
financial pressuresthat school districts face. But teacher unions
note thelaw imposes the tax on employers. They see no obliga-tion
to agree to pay all or part of the cost. Nor are theykeen to have
union members receive less generous ben-efits, particularly if the
economy improves in the nextfew years and districts receive more
tax revenue.
Sobota, Wilson and Atlas recommend three possi-ble bargaining
proposals for school districts:
Negotiate a health care benefit program that com-plies with the
Affordable Care Act and avoids theexcise tax.
Allow for a contract reopener to address issues thatmay arise as
it gets closer to the effective date ofthe tax.
Devise a method of calculating the employer andemployee share of
the cost of the premiums to ensurethat the cost includes any excise
tax.
May 12, 2014 ISSUES IN EDUCATION On Board 7
Economic downturn leads to uptick in STEM majors
The Great Recession spurred increased enrollments in the
so-calledSTEM fields of science, technology, engineering and math,
according to a re-port in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
The report, titled STEM Majors, the Liberal Arts, and the Great
Re-cession, analyzed data on students anticipated majors from 2007
to 2011 re-ported on the Freshman Survey of the Cooperative
Institutional ResearchProgram, a national longitudinal study
administered by researchers at UCLA.The data are leading indicators
of degrees awarded. Results were compared withenrollment figures
provided by the American Society for Engineering Education.
Since 2007, the number of engineering majors increased by 57.1
percentand biology majors grew 28.2 percent. There were smaller
increases for otherSTEM fields: 11.1 percent in the physical
sciences, 12.6 percent in mathematics,and stagnation in computer
science. The number of anticipated majors in biol-ogy and
engineering increased among both men and women.
Study authors Jerry Jacobs, a professor of sociology at the
University ofPennsylvania, and Linda Sax, a professor of education
at UCLA, cautioned thatthe growth in planned majors in biology and
engineering does not fully answerconcerns about future work-force
shortages in the STEM fields, and the recentincreases will probably
ebb as the economy improves.
Gallup: Seven in 10 teachers not engaged in their work
Nearly 70 percent of U.S. teachers are not engaged in their
jobs, accordingto a recent survey by Gallup.
Gallup surveyed roughly 7,200 K-12 teachers in 2012 to
distinguish highlyengaged workplaces from those in which employees
were less engaged. Aboutone-third of U.S. teachers (31 percent)
were engaged, meaning they were in-volved in, enthusiastic about,
and committed to their work, and that they knowthe scope of their
jobs and constantly look for new and better ways to
achieveoutcomes.
A little more than half (56 percent) were not engaged,
indicating they maybe satisfied with their jobs but are not
emotionally connected to their workplacesand are unlikely to devote
much discretionary effort to their work. Thirteen per-cent were
actively disengaged, or dissatisfied with their workplaces and
likelyto be spreading negativity to their coworkers.
The State of Americas Schools: The Path to Winning Again in
Educa-tion may be found at www.gallup.com.
Paul Heiser, Senior Research Analyst
Research briefs
