Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/122777
Sarasota News Leader April 19, 2013 Page 38 get for the 2014 fiscal year calls for a 4 percent increase in employee health insurance premiums. She pointed out that the estimate "was based on our claims experience which is the normal factor used to determine changes in premiums from one year to the next," along with anticipated impacts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Corcoran added in an email, "We have received some preliminary estimates from our health insurance carrier that we should exSuperintendent Lori White. File photo pect about a 3.8% increase from just fees and taxes associated with the ACA." As for the media specialists' situation: Claire Miller, a visiting instructor librarian from the That would amount to about $1.5 million more University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee, annually beginning in January 2014, she pointaddressed the board Tuesday about research ed out. focusing on students who attended a school Moreover, Corcoran wrote, the ACA requires with a media specialist compared to those that the district provide health insurance who went to schools without the positions. to any worker — whether appointed by the According to Miller, "In every case across the School Board, a substitute or a contract work- board, students' educational outcomes in coler — if the person works an average of 30 lege were improved by the presence of a mehours or more per week. Therefore, she said, dia specialist in high school." the annual impact of that change will be about Donna Heath, a district media specialist, $2.6 million "over and above any premium pointed out that the charter schools and prichanges associated with our claims history. vate schools in the county still will have media The additional impact has not yet been includspecialists if the board cuts the positions in ed in the budget because the implementation the other public schools. guidance is still being interpreted and is constantly changing." "The district has spent millions of dollars on several campuses to build new media centers The Sarasota district has cut its budget by 30 that will now be managed by staff without mepercent since 2007, Weidner noted during the dia specialist qualifications," she added. workshop. Media specialists already have been eliminatSuperintendent Lori White, who is responsible ed in the district elementary schools. for presenting options to the board for trimming spending, added that the suggestions The board members nonetheless indicated the she poses are "decisions made to stop the position is likely to disappear in the middle bleeding, not choices I would make if I saw and high schools so the district can save more another way." than half a million dollars. %