More News

Frederick County Public Schools employees and retirees will receive a "rebate" payment from the FCPS self-insurance fund. But is the payment a true rebate, as the president of the Board of Education recently insisted, or is it a bonus?

According to FCPS budget documents: "Frederick County Public Schools operates the Self Insurance Fund to provide health, dental, vision and pharmacy services for employees. Claims processing and some administrative services are administered by a third party administrator. The FCPS purchases Stop-loss coverage as a way to reduce risk of the very high insurance claims. A reserve fund is also maintained to offset periods when claims are higher than anticipated."

Looking at www.fcps.org/budget for fiscal 2010, the fund has an approved operating revenue of $63 million (up from $46 million for fiscal 2006). For every $100 in revenue into the fund, employees/retirees contribute $19 in premiums and taxpayers contribute the remaining $81.

So the FCPS self-insurance fund does not operate solely on the premiums collected from employees/retirees, but rather is significantly subsidized and funded by you, the taxpayer.

On June 9, 2010, the Board of Education voted for a fiscal 2011 self-insurance budget of $67,715,179, or $3,210,179 more than the fiscal 2010 budget. The fiscal 2011 budget document for the self-insurance fund (viewable at url2url.com/25) includes this very curious line item: An additional "transfer from general fund" of $2.7 million (in addition to the "general fund contribution" of $46,084,922).

On July 1, 2010, fiscal 2011 started for FCPS.

On Aug. 11, 2010, the Board of Education ratified the FCTA (Frederick County Teachers Association) agreement. It included a clause where approximately $6 million in "overpayments" to the self-insurance fund would be dispersed: $3 million to employees/retirees in the form of a rebate and $3 million to the Board of Education as a rebate for future fiscals 2011 and 2012 budget needs.

Whoa! On June 9, the board votes to transfer $2.7 million into the fund for the fiscal year starting July 1, but then on Aug. 11 the board votes to remove $3 million from the fund, calling it a rebate to themselves?

Write a check to yourself for $10,000 and deposit it into your checking account and then you will understand what is going on here.

So the transfer of funds to the self-insurance fund, and then immediate transfer of money from the fund was nothing more than an accounting trick.

Money to and from the board is pretty much of a wash. But that still leaves $3 million being dispersed to employees and retirees.

For every $100 leaving the fund, $19 is an actual rebate of premiums, but $81 is taxpayer money, being used as a bonus.

The core issue at hand is not that there was a rebate. The public understands rebates (you get back part/all of what you paid; not more than you paid in). The core issue is not even that there was a bonus. Many might even agree with the bonus.

Rather, the core issue at hand is that the leadership of our Board of Education felt it necessary employ an "accounting trick" to hide the fact that the board was not truly receiving $3 million from the insurance fund!

The president of the Board of Education calls their activities "transparency in government" for which they should earn an "A" grade. I call it obfuscation and deception and a total breakdown in the integrity and the "public trust" of the current Board of Education leadership.

It is time to elect new board members who will insist on transparency within the school system, likely even creating a school system policy (school law) to enforce true transparency.

The public deserves to hear the "truth" from our Board of Education — and not the "truthiness" being spoon-fed to us.

Jerry Jongerius, Adamstown