ANN ARBOR, Mich. (WXYZ) — Teachers in Ann Arbor are voicing their concerns about their healthcare costs.
We’re told that their insurance rates will be going up and some teachers are worried they won’t be able to afford the higher cost.
“Teachers are going to see with the HMO that we have, they’re going to be paying about $3,300 more per year out of pocket and that pushes it to about $10,000 out of pocket per year for the HMO, for the PPO, it’s going up a little over $4,000,” said Fred Klein, the president of the Ann Arbor Education Association.
The union is currently in negotiations talks with the school district over healthcare costs.
“This increase in cost is just unsustainable for teachers. I was just contacted by a teacher on Friday who said they had to back out of a mortgage agreement because of these new health insurance rates,” said Klein.
I also spoke with Tamala Bell, the vice president of AAEA. She says morale among the teachers in the district has dropped drastically as they worry about managing the higher health care costs.
“We are hearing of teachers saying that they just cannot stretch the already tight budget that they already have because they are living paycheck to paycheck and that teacher paycheck is not stretching,” said Bell.
Bell says that the teachers had to deal with harsh budget cuts earlier in the year, and now they are facing this.
“Teachers are in a full-on state of panic. Teachers are frustrated, teachers are angry, there are some teachers that are feeling just an overall feeling of despair,” Bell added.
Klein says he hopes the district does something to help teachers.
"Providing more money towards the healthcare premium cost or giving us really decent raises to offset some of that cost,” said Klein.
Ann Arbor public schools sent us a statement about all of this saying:
"We are currently in the collective bargaining process so we do not yet know what the costs will be for the final health care options."
The union and school district will resume talks at the negotiating table on Friday.
