Teachers want Blue Shield now

Suzie Harrison

The Laguna Beach Unified School District office’s parking lot

attracted swarms of teachers concerned about their benefits well

before the scheduled school board meeting on Tuesday.

Teachers from El Morro, Thurston, Top of the World and Laguna

Beach High School were buzzing about the impending insurance issue,

and they came prepared, passing out scripts and stickers that read

“Blue Shield Now.”

Once the doors finally opened a little past 7 p.m., it was

standing-room only. .

Dave Dixon, a teacher at Thurston Middle School for 15 years,

addressed the board first.

“Tonight, we’re asking you for adequate health care coverage,”

Dixon began.

Negotiation with the district had been adversarial, negative and

dismissive, and threatened to leave teachers as the only employees in

the district with the costly CCN medical insurance provider plan, he

said. In November, it was agreed that Blue Shield was the better

alternative, Dixon said.

He said that while the administration received bonuses and raises,

what was proposed to the teachers added up to a lower standard of

living. The two systems of compensation and benefits were overtly

unfair, he said.

“We need to move to Blue Shield now and achieve immediately the

goal that you move us with the other employee groups,” Dixon said to

the board. “You’ve never been disrespectful. We need you to

intervene. Had you been to one of those [negotiation] meetings, you

would have.”

His message was greeted with long applause from the concerned

teachers.

Marilyn Beauchemin, who has been teaching at El Morro for 20 years

and is also on the negotiating team, echoed the group’s fears.

“I know [CCN] is in trouble,” Beauchemin said. “I’m very concerned

to go back to the table and iron out our differences.”

A stream of teachers spoke with the same concerns.

Dawn Mirone, president of the Laguna Beach Unified Faculty Assn.,

said the good thing is that the board made a public pledge to the

teachers that it would not be uninsured, which was the main issue and

something they had been negotiating since September.

“We’ve been investigating switching to Blue Shield from our

current plan,” Mirone said. “The teachers were ready to move in

November 2003.”

On Tuesday, the board was set to approve the Blue Shield plan for

all administrators and classified staff and leave the teachers with

CCN, she said.

“Everyone has been on the same insurance plan and same increase in

salary until four years ago, when the superintendent and board

started to restructure,” Mirone said.

The board wanted to move to Blue Shield because it compared it to

the current plan and saw that there were short- and long-term savings

to the district if it was used, she said.

The district told teachers that the small pool at CCN is going out

of business, Mirone said.

“It started out with five different districts,” Mirone said.

“Slowly but surely, the other districts are pulling out of CCN.”

Their fear is that the plan will become insolvent and they won’t

be insured anymore.

“The problem surfaced when the district team demanded that we cut

our benefits, that the teachers pay an undetermined amount into the

benefits,” Mirone said. “It would be what the annual benefit increase

would be and would be picked up by the employees [teachers].”

The board thought it was too indefinite to pay an unspecified

amount each month, Mirone said. The district proposed to offset the

rise in healthcare costs with a half-percent salary increase, which

Mirone said amounted to about $300 a year for the average teacher.

“It concerned us because the district is so financially healthy,

fortunately,” Mirone said. “They saw an 11% increase in property tax

this year in the district alone.”

Last year saw the same increase, and next year should be even

greater, she said.

“The average administrative raise, not including the

superintendent, has been nearly 40% since 2000,” Mirone said. “These

raises are dwarfed by the superintendents. Just in straight salary

alone, her base pay has risen 56% in five years. She is one of the

highest paid superintendents in the state.”

Assistant Supt. Steven Keller said Thursday morning that the

teacher’s union and the district negotiation team would be meeting on

March 17.

“The district continues to be optimistic that we will come to

consensus regarding the health benefits issue and the other issues

addressed in the negotiating process,” Keller said.

Some of the information Mirone shared was inaccurate, Keller said.

“Never has the district attempted to compromise or discontinue

health benefits for the 2003-04 school year,” Keller said. “Cost

containment regarding health benefits will benefit everyone.”

He said that Supt. Theresa Daem and the board appreciated and

respected the teachers’ voices at the meeting on Tuesday.

“The district agrees with their motto that read ‘Blue Shield

Now,’” Keller said. “I would implore all of our teachers to compare

health benefit packages with any Orange County school district.”