The Final Report - Malcolm Shabazz City High School, Madison WI

Decision Item #27:Background:PRORATE PART-TIME TEACHER HEALTHCARE CONTRIBUTIONSThe District offers dental and medical healthcare benefits to all teacherswith an FTE status of .5 or greater. When an eligible teacher elects toparticipate in District healthcare benefits, the District contribution amountis the same for every teacher, regardless of the teacher FTE status. TheDistrict dollar contribution amount is the same for teachers employed asfull-time 1.0 FTE employees as it is for part-time teachers employed as .5FTE through .9 FTE employees. This allows part-time teachers to obtainfull-time equivalent benefits without additional part-time teachercontributions.Our review of this program indicates MMSD could reduce expenditures fordental and medical benefits by electing to prorate these benefits for parttimeteachers based upon teacher FTE. Under this plan, the District wouldprovide a percentage of the usual District contributions for part-timeteachers equivalent to the teacher FTE status. For example, a .5 FTEteacher would receive a District contribution of 50% of the usual Districtcontribution for a 1.0 FTE teacher.For comparison purposes, we reviewed part-time benefit program for otherorganizations and noted the following:• The State of Wisconsin has the same policy currently in place atMMSD, providing and funding full-time benefits to all employees witha status of .5 FTE or greater.• The City of Madison’s policy is to prorate benefits for part-timeemployees.• Dane County has a policy to prorate benefits for part-time employeesto the nearest tenth (.1).• A survey conducted of 63 Madison area organizations in year 2000 bythe Greater Madison Area Chapter of the Society for HumanResources Management reports the following:- 84% of these organizations provide benefits to part-timeemployees.- 42% of these organizations that provide part-time benefits proratethe benefits based on hours worked.Expenditures:For year 2000-2001 the total cost of these benefits for part-time teachersare $3,141,185. District and part-time teacher contributions for year 2000-2001 are:Benefit Total District Contribution Total Teacher ContributionSingle Dental $ 11,655 $ 1,294Family Dental $ 190,832 $ 21,211Single Medical $ 164,505 $ 17,447Family Medical $2,486,664 $247,577Totals $2,853,656 $287,529Virchow, Krause & Co. LLP Page 126March 11, 2002