BENEFIT CHOICES Districts can change health care coverage by Sylvia Wood
A
s school districts prepare for the new school year this month, hundreds of thousands of Texas teachers and staff will be making their annual benefit elections during what is typically an open enrollment period. This time, however, employees in 115 public school and charter districts will have choices that don’t include TRSActiveCare because of a change last year that allowed school districts across Texas to opt out of the state’s health care plan. The law also stipulates that districts that choose to remain within TRS-ActiveCare cannot offer any alternative group health coverage beginning Sept. 1, 2022. “I believe a major goal of the law was to provide districts with some flexibility, while also trying to ensure the long-term stability of TRS-ActiveCare,” said Trent Toon, director of operations for First Public, which administers the TASB Benefits Cooperative that provides benefit services to participating Texas school districts. “So, districts must either be all-in with TRS-ActiveCare with no competing plans — or completely out. There’s no in between.” Toon said the decision to stay or go is not always straightforward and is dependent on the unique circumstances of each district. “What makes financial sense for one district may not make sense for another one,” he explained. “It’s important for districts to look at their claims and contribution data and do their homework.”
One district’s decision to change After last year’s law change, Spring ISD in north Houston did just that, analyzing five years of claims data before bringing a recommendation to its board of trustees in December to leave TRS-ActiveCare in favor of a self-funded medical plan. Spring ISD’s Chief Financial Officer Ann Westbrooks said the decision wasn’t easy, especially since Senate Bill 1444 doesn’t allow districts that opt out of TRS-ActiveCare to rejoin
12 Texas Lone Star | August 2022 | texaslonestaronline.org
Spring
for a total of five plan years. Districts that do choose to leave must make the decision by Dec. 31 of the year “preceding the first day of the plan year in which the election will be effective.” For most school districts, that’s Sept. 1. “When we compared our contributions to claims, what we saw was a surplus,” Westbrooks said. She said that information, combined with TRS moving to regional rates for its health care plans, helped inform the recommendation to leave. The Spring ISD Board of Trustees approved the change last December, as did dozens of other districts across the state. This fall, more districts are expected to start analyzing their claims and contribution data to determine their future with TRS-ActiveCare. In April, Gov. Greg Abbott announced the allocation of $435 million in CARES Act funding to help keep TRS-ActiveCare rates flat for the 2022-23 school year. That money was in addition to the $286 million in American Rescue Plan funds already committed by state lawmakers to TRS to help defray COVID-19-related health care costs.