Gov. Mike Beebe and the state Senate’s leader said Tuesday that they’re just short of securing the required 27 votes in the Senate needed to appropriate $43 million in surplus funds for the public-school employees health-insurance plan.
The infusion of state funds would help teachers and other public-school employees avoid premium increases of nearly 50 percent, effective Jan. 1.
If the state subsidy is approved, premiums will increase roughly 10 percent.
Beebe said legislative leaders advised him that they have lined up the votes of 77 state representatives,two more than are needed to approve the legislation in the 100-member House. But, he said, they are a couple of votes short of the 27 needed in the 34-member Senate, which has one vacant seat.
“If we don’t have the votes, there is no point in calling a [special] session,” Beebe told reporters in the state Capitol in Little Rock.
The governor said the state’s Employee Benefits Division needs to get notices distributed to school employees by Nov. 1 to allow them to choose their health insurance plans, so it needs a couple of weeks to prepare the necessary materials.
On Sept. 23, he delayed the enrollment period for the plan by a month from Oct. 1-31 until Nov. 1-20 to allow lawmakers more time to reach a consensus on short-range and long-term fixes for the health insurance plan.
“I guess theoretically we could call a [three-day] session tomorrow late in the day if they reach an agreement in the morning,” Beebe said Tuesday.
Bob Alexander, director of the Employee Benefits Division, told the board that governs the heath-insurance plan that Beebe asked for lawmakers to be given a few more days to try to secure the required votes for legislation. If a deal is reached, the board could have a meeting by telephone “Friday or Saturday or whichever that occurs” so the board could set the rates based on the agreed-upon legislation, he said.
“If they come up with $43 million, we would like to take action to reduce the rate increase, so I think we are willing to add a few more days to our timeline,” he told the State and Public School Life and Health Insurance Board.
“We are really up against the wall there, but we are trying the best we can do to give them every opportunity to add any funds that they can come up with for the program,” Alexander said.
Senate President Pro Tempore Michael Lamoureux, R-Russellville, said he doesn’t know whether Senate leaders will be able to persuade three or four more senators to agree to vote for the $43 million subsidy.
He said some senators are balking at supporting the legislation because they want the bailout to be less generous.
Some object to proposed legislation to take several million dollars in property tax revenue from eight better-off school districts and reallocate it for use on school buildings across the state, he said. Others, he said, want the board overseeing the health insurance plan overhauled.
Sen. Cecile Bledsoe, R-Rogers, said she’s not sure whether she would support the legislation.
She said she “would feel better” with the plan members’ premiums increasing by16 percent - an option that legislative leaders have said would require the use of $36 million of surplus funds.
“That would be something more palatable for people not in education,” Bledsoe said, adding that she has received many emails from people who are questioning why school employees are getting so much assistance when so many other Arkansans are facing higher insurance premiums.
She said she loves teachers, some of whom are in her family, “but I want to think about the taxpayers who are really struggling.”
Beebe said the $43 million “is the figure that the greatest [legislative] consensus was arrived at.”
Sen. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, said he is refusing to say how he’ll vote on the proposed legislation until Beebe “takes off the table” proposed legislation reallocating several million dollars in property tax revenue from eight school districts with exceptionally high property tax collections. If approved, the reallocation would be phased in over three years, starting in school year 2015-16, according to legislative leaders.
Sen. Bill Sample, R-Hot Springs, said he isn’t ready to support the $43 million package. “We have some negotiating to do. I am not going to commit one way or the other on the way I am going to vote,” he said. Sample declined to reveal what he wants to negotiate.
Dropping the proposed property tax reallocation legislation could sway some legislators. But Beebe and other lawmakers said legislators who support the $43 million bailout will vote against it if the reallocation is dropped.
“My stance all along has been vote that separate up or down and vote whatever way you want to,” he said, referring to the proposed property tax reallocation legislation. “It shouldn’t be the thing that holds up the teacher insurance thing.”
Beebe said he supports legislation that lawmakers requested, which would remove the entire health insurance plan board at the end of this year.
If approved, Beebe said, he would fill the board vacancies through reappointments and new appointments.
He said some lawmakers have told him that “we want more of a permanent change [in the insurance plans] before we vote for that money.”
“The problem with that is you don’t have time for that. Any major changes in benefits would require rebidding this stuff and you couldn’t get it rebid before Jan. 1 and Jan. 1 is when the new year exists for people to have insurance,” Beebe said.
Asked what he would tell public school employees if legislative leaders fall short of securing enough votes to justify a special session, Beebe said, “We would just share the roll call with everybody, and they can make up their own minds about who pledged to vote which way.”
Alexander has cited a lack of funding from the state and school districts as the primary reason rates have increased. The plan covers 47,000 teachers, cafeteria workers, janitors and other school employees and their families.
Under the rates approved in August by the State and Public School Life and Health Insurance Board, the premium for the most expensive and popular plan for individual school employees would increase to a maximum of $336 a month, up from $226.70 this year.
A 10 percent premium increase would boost the cost to about $249.37 a month, according to Alexander.
The monthly premiums for family coverage under the most expensive and popular plan are expected to rise to about $1,528 in 2014, up from $1,029.96 this year, if the Legislature does nothing.
A 10 percent premium increase would boost the monthly cost of family coverage under this plan to about $1,133.96, according to Alexander.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 10/16/2013