Lawmakers get educators’ list of wishes
Posted on Tuesday, September 23, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/238170/
The 2009 General Assembly should allocate more money for teacher health insurance and for more students to take Internet classes on school buses, advocates of those ideas told legislators Monday.
Dan Marzoni of Fayetteville, president of the Arkansas Education Association teachers union, presented figures he said show that Arkansas shouldn’t be satisfied with relatively high teacher salaries because Arkansas teachers are paying more for insurance than in other states.
“Salaries and insurance go hand in hand,” Marzoni told the House and Senate Education Committees.
Marzoni said the state Supreme Court in its 2002 school funding decision may not have said that insurance benefits for teachers were required as part of an adequate and equitable education. He acknowledged that the court focused on salaries. But he said the numbers show that costly insurance premiums have the effect of reducing salaries.
Arkansas was seventh among the 12 member states of the Southern Regional Education Board in average teacher salary for the 2005-06 school year at $ 42, 093.
But Arkansas also required its teachers to pay the most per year toward insurance costs on single plans: $ 1, 365.
That dropped Arkansas to ninth on average salaries, when employee shares of insurance are subtracted.
Family plans are even costlier. Arkansas teachers paid the second-highest share for family plans, dropping Arkansas to 11 th when costs of employee family plans are subtracted.
Senate committee Chairman Jim Argue, D-Little Rock, asked Marzoni if he could share any anecdotes that show the “uncompetitive” teacher health insurance plans have led to teachers leaving the profession or to problems in recruiting teachers.
Marzoni said he couldn’t, but he said teachers are frustrated. He recalled hearing from two teachers who moved to Arkansas from California, which paid all of their health insurance premiums, and from his wife, a teacher in the Rogers district, whose check is smaller because of insurance increases.
“It was only about $ 5 [less ], but it still went down and not up,” Marzoni said.
Sen. Jimmy Jeffress, D-Crossett, a retired teacher, said he couldn’t have afforded to retire if he hadn’t been elected to the Legislature, which allowed him to transfer his insurance from the teachers plan to the less costly state employee plan.
Marzoni asked legislators for two things: That in the 2009 legislative session, when budgeting for fiscal 2010 and 2011, they approve the higher end of the proposed range of increases in state and local foundation funding for public schools recommended by the committees in their adequacy study. The top end of that range is a 2. 2 percent increase, which would cost the state $ 59 million. Add money to the separate teacher insurance fund at the Employee Benefits Division at the Department of Finance and Administration. Marzoni didn’t recommend a specific amount. In 2005, the Legislature put $ 35 million in it.
The 2009 General Assembly starts in January.
Unless more state money is put into the system, teachers ’ share of the health insurance premiums are expected to rise $ 25 million in 2010 and an additional $ 21 million in 2011.
Argue and Jeffress have been pushing for more dollars for insurance. But other legislators are pushing for more money for school district transportation, which has been championed by Rep. Bill Abernathy, D-Mena.
Also Monday, legislators heard from Julie Hudson. She’s a professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., and the program director for the Aspirnaut Initiative, which equips school buses with the Internet.
She said her group will ask the Legislature in 2009 for $ 2 million a year to expand a program that’s available in the Sheridan district.
The money would be split equally among the state’s four congressional districts. School districts would apply to participate. The money would cover 2, 000 students, or about $ 1, 000 each.
Hudson touted the advanced science and math classes the students would take online while riding school buses.
Argue asked why the program doesn’t focus on core subjects.
Hudson said it allows students to take core subjects years earlier than usual.
But Rep. Johnnie Roebuck, D-Arkadelphia, said she had heard from a student who did that who wasn’t able to receive credit for it.
Assistant Education Commissioner Charity Smith told legislators the Education Department was looking into that.
Rep. Janet Johnson, D-Bryant, asked Hudson if there are any problems with the program.
Hudson acknowledged that sometimes the buses lose Internet service because of poor cellular service and that bouncy buses and distractions from classmates can make for a difficult learning environment at times. But she said the students adjust well and can focus on their studies.