Guest Letter
Iva Pawling, Board Member
FUEL – Families Unified for Education in Laguna
A $1M health care caps issue or $100K
Much has been made of employee health care caps in our school district, with claims circulating that the district irresponsibly overspent more than $1.8 million. That figure has become convenient outrage bait, but it is not accurate.
When the district’s assistant superintendent of business services presented the final analysis, the actual amount paid above contractual health care caps over a five-year period ending in the last school year was $1.04 million. That is a meaningful number, but it is also one the district can afford. More importantly, it must be understood in context.
When these caps were established in 2020, the majority of district employees selected health plans with zero premium cost. For the first two years, this majority of teachers and staff paid nothing toward their health care. That was not a mistake. It was a deliberate decision by a well-funded district to take care of its employees, and it was absolutely the right one.
Since then, health care premiums have exploded. Over six years, the average premium per employee increased by roughly 30%, or about $4,500. During that same time, the cap increased by just $439. That imbalance matters.
A cap structure that assumes employees should absorb roughly 90% of massive premium increases is not reasonable. No district that can afford better should do that to its workforce. Even a modest and fair split would have the district covering the vast majority of those increases.
If the district had covered 90% of the premium growth and passed along just 10% to employees, the so-called excess shrinks dramatically. That 10% of $1.04 million is $104,000 spread over five years. On a $90 million annual budget, that represents about .022%.
Yet we are now hearing calls for investigations and accusations of corruption over what is, in reality, a rounding error when viewed through a fair and ethical lens.
Was this handled poorly by the prior administration? Yes. Should the issue have been brought forward and corrected sooner? Absolutely. Were the caps themselves reasonable? No.
What is unreasonable is suggesting that a district with the means to support its teachers should shift the overwhelming burden of skyrocketing health care costs onto them. That is not fiscal responsibility. That is abdication.
Our teachers deserve better than manufactured outrage and misleading math. We should focus on doing what is right, not what is loud. And what is right is taking care of the people who take care of our students.
We can afford to. We always have.
Iva Pawling, FUEL Laguna Board Member
Laguna Beach
