Earlier this year, the Hamilton County Department of Education was able to close a $40 million budget deficit without any concessions from the Hamilton County Education Association (HCEA) for a change in teachers' medical insurance benefits. The district has funded a $31.6 million increase in medical insurance over the past 12 years, Chief Financial Officer Tommy Kranz said in April, and medical insurance is expected to cost the district an additional $4.9 to $6 million this year.
Now, the district needs to come up with $26.3 million in order to balance the 2011 fiscal year budget, and negotiations with HCEA over teacher benefits have yet to produce any new savings.
The Chattanooga Times Free Press reports:
Ten months after Hamilton County Schools administrators and teacher’s association leaders began negotiating changes to health insurance benefits, they are at a stalemate.
After several health insurance proposals from the school district and one from the teacher’s association — which all were voted down by members of the opposite negotiating team — the process seems to be back where it started.
At the last negotiating session, association members suggested that maybe there was no compromise to be had. And recently the term “impasse,” a point at which negotiations must cease and teams agree to disagree, has surfaced.
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