By: Health Insurance
Submitted: 2009-12-02 12:38:01 | Word Count: 453
Come January, Denise Elbaum will pay another $200 a month for health insurance for her two daughters.
Like many teachers and Broward School District employees, the divorced mother has been hit with a 46-percent increase for dependent health care coverage through Vista Healthplan. Going without insurance isn't an option, she said, as one of her daughter has special medical needs.
[ advertisement ]
She joined hundreds of other teachers, district employees and Broward Teachers Union officials Tuesday evening on the sidewalks in front of the Broward School District headquarters, demanding higher pay and lower health insurance costs.
"I'm going to be making less than I was this year," said Elbaum, who teaches kindergarten at Forest Hills Elementary School in Coral Springs. "That's why I'm here, because of health insurance."
At the same time, teacher contract negotiations have reached a stand-still. District officials have said there is no money for raises. The union maintains there is money, and raises could be given if the district reduced administrators' summer schedules or did not rehire retired administrators. The union wants an average 4 percent increase.
Contract negotiations also stalled last year, although teachers eventually received an average 3.25 percent increase. But not all teachers received equal increases — some received $71 a year, while others as much as $9,300, depending on where they landed on the district's teacher salary schedule. Broward's starting teachers earn a base pay of $39,300, while veterans top out at $71,550 after 19 years with the district, according to the current contract.
Union president Pat Santeramo said he thinks taxpayers will support the raises, even though Broward's unemployment has reached record levels of 9.8 percent in September, and 42 of the 394 teachers laid off during the summer have not been recalled.
"I think it's a little bit different here [than last year], the fact that the FBI is doing their probe," Santeramo said. "We're still hopeful that we'll have a settlement."
Broward School Board member Beverly Gallagher was arrested Sept. 23 on federal corruption charges, accused of accepting bribes to steer construction contracts to favored companies. Prosecutors also have subpoenaed documents related to repairs of portable classrooms after Hurricane Wilma.
Susan Rose, a veteran teacher at Nob Hill Elementary School in Sunrise, said she thinks the district should find money for raises.
