(Geronimo) – The Navarro ISD is picking up more of the tab for those employees electing health insurance coverage through the school district. Navarro ISD Superintendent Wendi Russell says the school board this past week has approved an increase to its contribution for TRS (Teacher’s Retirement System) Active Care.
“We are going to add $25 toward the insurance component for all of our staff. So, we will start paying $250 toward insurance for our staff.
We were paying $225, and we raised it to $250 and that hasn’t been done since 2002,” said Russell.
Since the inception of the state health insurance program in 2002, district officials say Texas districts were required to contribute $150 per month per employee to health insurance premiums. The state of Texas is also required to contribute $75 per month per employee to the health care premiums. This amount reportedly has also not increased since the program began in 2002.
Russell says the district is in a good financial position to be able to offer what she says is a well-deserved increase for employees.
“We thought it was important to raise that amount. Like I said, it hadn’t been done since 2002 and so when we presented it to the board, it’s a matter of making sure that our staff are taken care of, and the board does care about that. Our insurance premiums are going to go up this year and we want to offset that as much as possible and make sure that our staff understand that we value them coming to work especially amid COVID and a pandemic and we want them to know that we care about their health and safety as well so being able to provide even $25 a month, is helpful and they’ll see that impact on their check,” said Russell.
The impact to the district for the additional $25 is estimated at $49,800.