NE Dubois school board drops insurance for board members

Tuesday evening, Northeast Dubois School Corporation school board members voted unanimously to end health insurance benefits for the board members.

The move comes as the school corporation explores cost-cutting measures to balance a general fund budget for school operations.

The health insurance benefits will end December 31.

“We have been working on it for awhile. We raised our deductibles earlier this year,” board member John Siebert said today. “It is clear to most constituents of the school corporation that it shouldn’t be there, and we agree.”

The general fund pays for day-to-day operational costs, employee benefits and pay. The school corporation has been exploring options to decrease an expected deficit of $300,000 in the fund, and the removal of the benefits for the school board will impact it to the tune of about $98,976.

“We didn’t put that in place; we just thought it was a benefit of being a school board member,” Siebert said. “We are looking at what is critical for the education of the students. We’ll do without that and we need to look at other areas we can cut.

The decreased funding has been attributed to lower school enrollment. Here is our previous story on the issue.

Brookston-based Administrator Assistance has been working with the school corporation to determine a path to financial solvency. Bruce Hatton reported to the school board that his team was examining the feedback from the focus groups, community forums, and recently completed surveys to have preliminary results available by Tuesday, December 1.

Hatton is expected to present recommendations from the general fund feasibility study to the school board at the Thursday, January 7 school board meeting.

“The community has been really supportive of this process,” Seibert said. “We think the constituents in the school corporation really support education, and they want to see the best outcome.”