Is Clark County Teachers Union Protecting a Health Insurance Scam?

(Ben Velderman/Education Action Group Foundation) – While the Great Recession has affected almost all Americans, Nevadans may be the hardest hit. The state leads the nation in unemployment (13 percent) and home foreclosures (three times the national average).

Because of the faltering economy and slowed tax revenue, the Clark County School District needs to cut $78 million from its budget over the next two years. The district must do this either by freezing teacher pay and finding a more affordable employee health insurance carrier, or by laying off 1,000 educators as early as next month.

The first alternative is obviously preferable, because students would be adversely affected by larger class sizes and the loss of many enthusiastic young teachers. Unfortunately the second option may be unavoidable, because the district has been unable to negotiate a new contract with its teachers union, the Clark County Education Association (CCEA).

CCSD is the fifth largest school district in the nation, serving around 310,000 students in 340 schools in and around Las Vegas. The district is also the largest employer in Nevada with some 33,000 employees, 18,000 of which are teachers.

The main sticking point seems to be the district’s desire to find a less expensive health insurance provider. CCEA members currently receive health insurance from the Teachers Health Trust, a company ironically owned and operated by their union.

Most people would describe the union’s insistence on selling its own company’s expensive insurance product to the school district as a conflict of interest, but union officials either don’t agree or don’t care.

The teachers union declared a bargaining impasse last summer. While the two sides could conceivably still reach a deal, it seems most likely that an arbitrator will make the final decision about wage freezes and the fate of the union-owned insurance company. The arbiter is legally bound to choose one side over the other.

“There’s no middle ground,” said district spokeswoman Amanda Fulkerson. “If the district wins, no layoffs and a pay freeze. If the union wins, some get raises, and others get laid off.”

A pay freeze would be a hardship for teachers, but it would be nothing more than many other employees in the public and private sectors have accepted in recent years. CCSD’s administrators, support staff and police have all agreed to a pay freeze, “leaving the teachers standing alone,” writes the Review-Journal.

Apparently union leaders and veteran teachers, who are in little jeopardy of layoff, are more interested in a raise than allowing their younger peers to remain on the job and provide smaller class sizes for students. Sadly, that attitude is fairly common among teachers unions around the nation. School administrators describe it as union members “eating their young.”

Many observers believe CCEA officials are also determined to preserve the monopoly the union-owned Teachers Health Trust has on the school’s health insurance business.