To The Editor:

As a resident of Newtown and an employee who has been on the insurance plan provided by the town, I would like to share the employee side of the “Insurance Savings” from the May 30th edition of the Bee.

-All of the Unions on the Board of Education side of the Town Self Funded insurance plan switched over to the a High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) from the PPO almost 10 years ago to save the Town and members on the plan money. The Town side still offers the PPO (at a greater cost to members and the Town) and the HDHP

The Town has underfunded the Self Insurance plan for at least the past 3 years, and has not set the cost of the insurance at the recommended cost from their insurance broker.

Currently the insurance reserve fund is at an over 2 million dollar deficit (I have seen numbers from 2 million to as high as 3.7 million)

The Town Finance Director and the BOF were aware of this in November of 2024, and there was a memo in December of 2024 suggesting an 18% increase in the HDHP cost, and a 22% increase in the PPO cost.

The Town and BOE Union Executives were called to a meeting on May 15th, to tell them that they would face an 18-22% increase in insurance costs, or they could take a lesser plan and get a 10% decrease in the cost if ALL unions agreed to take it, or a 5% decrease if they chose to change their coverage and NOT ALL UNIONS agreed. This put Union against Union to “save money."

The Town gave the Unions 15 calendar days to make their decisions, and had no information on how many members would be affected by the proposed changes to the prescription plan. The Unions asked for that information and as of the May 30th deadline, still had not received that information.

The quote for the Town insurance from Anthem for the 2025-26 was to have a 3.8% increase. The Town proposed an 18% (for HDHP) and 22% (for PPO) increase to the members. Even with the 10% or 5% discount for changing their plans, the Unions would still be paying more than the original quote. (Is this to pay back the deficit?)

The Town has not properly adjusted cost, or funded accounts, leaving the reserve fund in a deficit.

The current increases put the repayment of the reserve fund on the members who have been paying what they were asked to pay.

It is time to get the answers as to why this happened for so many years, and how the Town will resolve this issue before we lose employees to surrounding towns because of the cost and coverage of the benefits offered to our BOE and Town staff.

Trent Harrison

Newtown