Unhealthy Proposal

Miami-Dade teachers protest proposed health care cuts

By Jordan Melnick  

Arlene Desdunes, a UTD organizer, rallies a group of teachers during Wednesday’s protest. Photo by Richard M. Brooks

Representatives of the Miami-Dade County Public School District and the United Teachers of Dade met with a special magistrate Friday to decide the fate of Aralis Arca and her 12-year-old daughter.

Arca, a sixth-grade English teacher at Glades Middle School, has a congenital heart defect; her daughter has Type I diabetes. For four hours, Arca sat patiently in a conference room at the School Board’s downtown Miami administration building, as union lawyer Mark Richard tried to convince the mediator that Arca and the 38,000 members of the United Teachers of Dade should receive full health care coverage.

“We are down to bone marrow,” Richard said, dramatizing the teachers’ plight. “They keep saying we can't impact this, we can't impact this, we can't impact this, but we can impact all these people.” In the end, he added, “the choice is always to take from the teachers.”

Traditionally, full health care coverage has been one of the main benefits offered to teachers, and many have viewed it as a counterbalance to insufficient wages.

However, the School Board proposed doing away with full-coverage care in October because of rising health care costs, which are expected to increase by $36 million, and an estimated $41 million in districtwide budget cuts that the state Legislature mandated this school year. The cuts have come in two installments — $29 million was sliced in October and $12 million last Wednesday.

While the School Board’s latest health care package, rejected by the United Teachers of Dade bargaining unit in a Feb. 11 vote, would fully cover an HMO and an NHP plan, it does not offer full coverage for a point-of-service plan, generally considered the most desirable of the three. Instead, teachers with no dependents who want the POS plan would have to pay a monthly fee of $53.18. Those insuring a family would pay up to $661.87 a month, a 23 percent increase from 2007. Of the 38,000 members of the bargaining unit, more than 19,000 currently are on the POS plan.

For Arca, the differences between the two plans boil down to affordability.

The two vials of insulin her daughter requires each month cost $150 under the HMO, compared with $40 under the POS.

“If this does not get resolved, I will have to leave the teaching profession ... for no other reason than I cannot afford it,” said Arca, a single mother of three.

The UTD estimates that it will cost between $4 million and $8 million to fully fund health care from July 1 to the end of the year. “In the weeds of a $3.1 billion budget, there must be $8 million,” Richard said.

To find the extra money, the UTD proposed allowing teachers to teach extra periods and putting extra administrators back into the classroom. Both of these options, according to the UTD, would allow the School Board to divert money otherwise allocated for hiring new teachers.

In Broward County, Richard noted, schools have a higher student-to-administrator ratio and a near identical student-to-teacher ratio.

He also pointed out that, in the last 15 years, district officials consistently underestimated the amount of money they would have at the end of the year — by as much as $350 million in 2005.

“We've seen our utility expenses skyrocket, our fuel has gone up for buses, insurance is up and the latest cost driver is food,” said Ofelia San Pedro, deputy superintendent for business operations, citing a $5 million hike in the cost of milk. “And it looks even worse for 08-09.”

Two days earlier, more than 500 Miami-Dade County Public School teachers, mostly members of the United Teachers of Dade, protested the reduction in health care coverage outside of the School Board administrative building at 1450 N.E. Second Ave.

Playing on the UTD slogan, “Some cuts won’t heal,” many of the protesters wore Band-Aids on their faces, clothing and arms while chanting, blowing whistles, shaking maracas and ringing cowbells.

“I’m taking care of other kids, and I can’t even take care of my own,” said Myrna Augustin, a third-year Hialeah Elementary School teacher who, though noticeably pregnant, marched with fellow union members up and down the sidewalk. A Post-It note on her belly read, “I can’t afford health insurance for my unborn child.”

Ultimately, the protesters wanted to know why teachers should have to bear the brunt of the financial burden.

“They have money for SUVs but not for our medical insurance,” said Mario Gonzalez, a special education teacher at Auburndale Elementary School, referring to the 32 vehicles assigned to eligible administrators, including Superintendent Rudolph Crew, on Feb. 29. Protesters wearing toy trucks around their necks asked how the School Board could fund the vehicles — which, according to a memo issued by Crew on Wednesday, have a net value of $325,353 — but not their health care.

The SUV assignments underscored a feeling among the protesters that teachers, not administrators, are the ones who feel the squeeze in tough times.

“When money is found for under-enrolled schools, summer school, transportation … money must be found for us,” UTD President Karen Aronowitz said. “We are not the leftovers.”

While most of the protesters wore red shirts, a significant portion of dissatisfied UTD members stood out in yellow tees that listed the names of five School Board members up for re-election in November.

“If we had a real union, they would tell those five to give us health care or we will not endorse you,” said Shawn Beightol, a teacher at Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High School who footed the $500 bill to have the shirts made. “But they won’t for some reason.”

Beightol was not alone in his criticism of the UTD.

“We don’t feel the union is doing enough to get us what we deserve,” said Oscar Badillo, a Miami Lakes teacher, who also wore a yellow shirt. “We feel even this protest is late.”

Some protesters were already pledging to leave Florida and teach elsewhere. 

“Goodbye Florida, Hello New York,” one sign exclaimed. “I’m moving to New York because I need a better salary and benefits,” said Kelly McManus, the second-year Auburndale teacher holding the sign.

During a public hearing on Wednesday, Aronowitz warned School Board members that Florida could, in fact, lose valuable educators as a result of the health care cuts. She added that members of Teach for America — an organization that puts recent college graduates in some of the country’s worst school districts, and which had just been honored at the meeting — would leave Miami-Dade County after their two-year contracts expired “if they’re not made to feel economically secure.”

“If there is still money for bonuses for the administration, for cars and for marketing campaigns, certainly there can be money for teachers,” School Board member Marta Perez told Marta Zayas, an Emerson Elementary Spanish teacher.

Perez, called a “crusader” by one speaker during the public hearing, had provided Crew’s memo confirming the allocation of funds for the 32 vehicles.

But not all members of the board seemed as sympathetic as Perez. During that same meeting, one UTD member directed a speech to Crew, who had vacated his chair and was nowhere in sight. And Vice Chair Perla Hantman repeatedly asked the packed audience to stop clapping and standing up.

Ultimately, however, the board’s decision will determine of the fate of Arca and her daughter.

“I love being a teacher — it has been my dream since I was 3 years old,” Arca said. “With the cost of living, you can't make ends meet. You are literally living paycheck to paycheck.”      

The special magistrate has 15 working days after Friday’s hearing to recommend a solution. The School Board then must approve it.