{"id":25300,"date":"2022-09-22T16:57:37","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T20:57:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=25300"},"modified":"2022-09-22T16:57:41","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T20:57:41","slug":"multiple-million-dollars-in-losses-are-revealed-for-the-polk-school-districts-free-health-care-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2022\/09\/22\/multiple-million-dollars-in-losses-are-revealed-for-the-polk-school-districts-free-health-care-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Multiple million dollars in losses are revealed for the Polk school district&#8217;s free health care plan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/polkschoolsfl.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Polk County Public Schools<\/a>&nbsp;administrators are projecting a nearly $38.1 million shortfall in its health insurance fund by 2024 due to rising healthcare costs and employee claims.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Linda King, director of risk management and employee benefits for Polk Schools, provided the school board with an update Tuesday on the district\u2019s health insurance plan. Her update included the fund\u2019s financials and potential cost-cutting options for the board to decide later.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"620\" height=\"350\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/healthcare.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-25301\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/healthcare.jpg 620w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/healthcare-300x169.jpg 300w\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Teachers and other benefits-eligible employees do not pay premiums for the employee health plan nor were optional dependent premiums increased, a Jan. 11 PCPS press release stated, adding that \u201cIndividual, benefits-eligible PCPS employees will continue to have health insurance coverage at no cost.\u201d Premiums are required for dependents of employees and district retirees.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During union negotiations, the district and the Polk Education Association and AFSCME Local 2227 employee groups agreed to an additional increase to the Self-Funded Health Insurance Plan for 2022. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fund shortage estimated&nbsp;to top $38 million&nbsp;by 2024<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Polk County Public Schools&nbsp;administrators are projecting a nearly $38.1 million shortfall in its health insurance fund by 2024 due to rising healthcare costs and employee claims.&nbsp; Linda King, director of&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25301,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[3463],"class_list":["post-25300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-polk-school-districts-free-health-care-plan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}