North Greene still pondering Egyptian Trust
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By Carmen Ensinger
The North Greene School District, despite there being discussion for the past two years, is still a member of the Egyptian Trust.
Egyptian Trust, otherwise known as the Egyptian Area Schools Employee Benefit Trust, was established in 1984 by public school districts in south central Illinois to provide high quality health benefits for employees at reasonable costs.
The idea behind the trust was that by pooling claims experience and by controlling benefit design and operating costs, the trust could offer better benefits, lower premiums and provide protection against the large premium increases often experienced by small school districts.
There is a Board of Managers comprised of one representative selected by each participating school district that governs the trust. The Board of Managers meets regularly and votes on plan design changes and premiums.
When premiums rose two years ago, the district shopped around for another insurance carrier. However, after finding out they would have to “buy out” of the trust, to the tune of well over $200,000 given the amount of employees, the district halted those discussions.
Other districts, however, did leave, drastically reducing the number of members in the trust.
North Greene Superintendent Jacky Kuchy reported to the school board the latest from the Board of Managers meeting.
“I haven’t heard of any confirmed number of districts leaving the trust at this time,” Kuchy said. “However, they have been approached by a very large district about joining and another district is trying to get back in.”
There are two committees within this Board of Managers – the Executive Committee and the Appeals Committee.
The purpose of the Executive Committee is to thoroughly review possible changes to plan design and contribution rates and make recommendations on those changes to the Board of Managers.
The Executive Committee recommended some changes at the last Board of Managers meeting.
“The Executive Committee recommended altering the deductible amount, co-insurance, copayed covered and prescription drugs amount,” Kuchy said. “All recommendations passed.”
Kuchy said the Board of Managers admitted part of the problem was their own fault.
“They are admitting that part of the issue with the trust is that they had not raised the deductible since 2011,” she said. “So, as the market has been trending, they had been holding steady. That is kind of unheard of in the market right now. Plus, prescription drugs have gone way up.”
The North Greene District had a loss ration last time at 96 percent.
“With that being said, I was hoping we would be in a low tier,” Kuchy said. “But there is still a substantial penalty to leave as of now. We need to discuss this further moving forward.”
