Citizen feedback was limited at a public hearing on the Williamsburg-James City County Schools proposed budget for the next year at Tuesday’s meeting of the WJCC School Board.
The budget Superintendent Steve Constantino presented to the School Board March 3 includes $124.4 million in expenditures, a 2.4 percent increase over last year’s figure.
The proposed budget for fiscal year 2016, which begins July 1, also includes a request for an additional $1.8 million from James City County and the City of Williamsburg.
Two people spoke during the hearing, both focusing on staff compensation and health insurance benefits.
Amelia Drake and Kim Hundley spoke as representatives of the WJCC Education Association, supporting Constantino’s inclusion of pay increases for employees of the school division.
Constantino’s proposed $124.4 million budget outlines nearly $2 million to provide a step increase — equivalent to an average of a 2.5 percent raise — for most teachers, and an equivalent raise for most employees.
Employees who are currently on the top step of the pay scale would not receive an increase.
Drake said the teachers and staff represented by the Education Association were invested members of the community, and were interested in a budget that benefited students by increasing funding for programming and benefited teachers by increasing compensation.
“As we’ve said before, we need to be competitive with our neighbors across Virginia so we can attract the most qualified individuals to work with our students,” Drake said.
Drake also urged the School Board to maintain the division’s preferred provider organization health insurance plans, rather than switching to an HMO system.
PPOs allow plan members to visit the doctor of their choice, while HMOs require members to choose from a list of approved physicians.
According to figures provided by the division, WJCC’s health insurance costs have increased 13 percent — about $1.3 million — over last year due to an abnormally large number of high-dollar claims and costs associated with the Affordable Care Act.
The division says a cost increase is unavoidable, but a combination of adjusting health insurance plan offerings and employer-employee cost-share would lessen the increase from $1.9 million to $1.3 million.
Part of those adjustments would be the elimination of one high-end health plan and the addition of another, cheaper plan. The remaining adjustments would be refigured premiums, which would increase for the lowest-tier plan, and decrease for higher-tier plans.
Drake said employees understood costs were likely to increase, but continued to support having a PPO plan over an HMO.
“These are essential conversations, and we are glad you have taken the time to entertain them carefully,” Drake said.
Board member Heather Cordasco (Roberts) said the division could look into offering incentives to employees to develop and maintain healthy lifestyles, which would save money and improve their wellbeing — an idea that interested several board members.
Kyra Cook (City of Williamsburg) said the division could examine existing data to better understand whether the division-sponsored health insurance plans were more often used to keep healthy people healthy or make sick people better.
The School Board is scheduled to adopt a budget at its March 24 meeting. James City County and Williamsburg — the two primary funding sources for the school division — will adopt their own budgets, including appropriations for WJCC, in May.
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