VIRGINIA BEACH — A special school board meeting called to address an upcoming massive increase in employee health care costs ended late Wednesday with the panel failing to take any action.
After hearing from multiple finance and benefits staff members — and being presented with numerous charts, graphs, timelines and deadlines during the three-hour meeting — the board concluded there wasn’t enough time to find a viable solution.
The group instead talked about the possibility of offering employees a stipend to offset the hefty increase in premium payments, which will take effect in January. But no decision was made on that idea, either.
Wednesday’s meeting was scheduled after more than 100 teachers, bus drivers, cafeteria workers and other contractual employees filed a lawsuit in Virginia Beach Circuit Court against Superintendent Donald R. Robertson Jr.
The complaint alleges Robertson knew since March that employee insurance premiums were likely going to more than double, but intentionally hid the information from the workers until after they’d signed their annual contracts.
The lawsuit also claims the increase was not caused by inflation, but was the result of the superintendent’s decision to end millions in subsidies the division had provided over the last two years.
Tim Anderson, the attorney representing the employees, said after the meeting that the group will move forward with its lawsuit. Anderson also said he expects more employees to sign on to it.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Robertson conceded that school officials should have done a better job communicating with employees before sending out an Aug. 7 email informing them that their premiums were going to be significantly higher beginning in January.
“We must do better and we will do better keeping employees informed in the future,” he said. “They had a lot of questions and tonight’s presentation was to give them some answers.”
While the premiums employees will pay next year are substantially higher than what they were over the last two years, they’re basically the same as what the workers paid from 2019 to 2022, according to data presented by staff. The school division was able to keep them much lower in recent years by using millions from a health fund to offset them, but the fund no longer has enough money to keep the subsidies going, the staff said.
An employee of a health care consulting business that assists the district told the board health care costs have been rising steadily over the last several years for everyone, with increases in prescription drug prices being a big part of that. After three years of offering subsidies, the district’s health fund was largely depleted, and no longer able to help, he said.
Robertson said he didn’t know what the final increase amount was going to be until late July. Once he knew what it would be, he told his staff to send the email on Aug. 7.
The superintendent said part of the problem for school officials is that the school’s budget year is from July 1 to June 30, while the health industry works on a regular calendar year.
“The two timelines don’t work well together, so what happens is you do the best you can to project what the costs might be,” he said. “That different schedule creates a dilemma for school divisions to try and project and inform staff on what their health costs will be.”
Robertson said the only way to continue offering subsidies would be to make difficult cuts elsewhere.
“You can cut programs to save money or you can cut people to save money,” he said. “Neither is a good option.”
Anderson disputed that claim. He said the 2025 health insurance subsidies were paid with reversion funds — money left over at the end of the budget year. The district, which has an annual budget of more than $1 billion, typically has anywhere from $10 million to $50 million left over at the end of the budget year, he said, with some of it due to employees leaving or positions not being filled.
“The fix is there,” Anderson said. “It’s in the reversion funds. And they know it’s there.”
Jane Harper, jane.harper@pilotonline.com
