The Torch

Issue date: 5/22/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Daniel Harkey

LCC faces a predicted 4.5 percent increase, totaling approximately $450,000, to its health insurance premiums this year, which is more manageable than last year's 12.1 percent increase.
The college is currently budgeting for a six percent increase.
Dennis Carr, executive director for Human Resources, said, "Six percent is really good. We should be very pleased that it's that fair a renewal and if we buy it down to 4.5 percent that's even better."
In an all-staff presentation on Feb. 14, an estimated 10 percent increase, totaling approximately $1 million, was presented to college staff. If necessary, the college was ready for up to a 10 percent increase.
"In fact, this year, if it was as high as we had feared it might be, it would absorb every penny we had hoped to put into compensation," Greg Morgan, associate vice president of finance, said.
Morgan believes that the compensation increases will "never [be] as much as you want but there will be a little bit." The remaining money that was budgeted, up to six percent, will then go to employee compensation.
This year, a cost-containment proposal, or shared-risk model, is being presented during the college's union and insurance bargaining processes. Morgan discussed that the model will spread the cost around so as not to over exert the college's budget.
"Part of our cost containment is to negotiate how much the college can afford. That's new to Lane. In the past, the college has absorbed all the increases," he said.
LCC's health insurance policy is unique for Oregon community colleges because it does not have a college-contribution funding cap.
In the standard procedure for the majority of Oregon colleges, the school pays a fixed contribution to the health insurance costs, with employees paying a smaller portion and absorbing any increases to premiums.
"Consequently, we have the highest contribution in the state to health insurance," Morgan said.
Pacific Source, a locally-owned and operated insurance company, is currently providing LCC's employee health insurance. LCC's Joint Insurance Committee will begin bargaining with Pacific Source this year.
The findings and discussions of the JIC will determine whether Pacific Source will continue to be the college's insurance provider for the following 2008-09 school year.
The college could switch to another provider - the Oregon Educator's Benefit Board, which was established by the 2007 Oregon Legislature when it passed Senate Bill 426.

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