COEUR d'ALENE - A plan to make a major change to the Coeur d'Alene School District's employee health benefit plan received some pushback from the local teachers union Wednesday during a collective bargaining session at Woodland Middle School.

Before a crowd of about 50 observers, the teachers also chastised the board for its negotiating tactics, and criticized the board's bargaining team for bringing the plan to the table before the insurance company officially offered it.

"Proposing a plan before full information was out, cannot be delivered at the time the proposal was made, ladies and gentlemen, that's bad faith bargaining," said Tim Sanford, the teachers' chief negotiator. "Your proposal was premature."

The board's negotiating team laid the plan out for the teachers union members during last week's bargaining session, several days before the negotiators expected to have hard numbers on it from the insurance company.

Offered by Superintendent Hazel Bauman, the district's chief negotiator, as a "proposal," and then later referred to as a "concept," the plan would save the district $1.8 million in annual insurance premiums by raising the health insurance deductible from $200 to $2,000 and dropping the co-insurance from 90 percent to 70 percent.

The district would then mitigate the increased health care costs to employees by depositing $1,000 into a health care savings account set up for each participating employee.

"Frankly, we're a little taken aback by your demeanor, and your assertions and allegations of bad faith bargaining," Bauman said. "I think we were really clear last week when we presented our information, that it was a concept, that it was something we wanted to explore further with you."

Bauman said they had good background information on the numbers, and that in education funding, things are always "in flux."

"The effect on those employees least able to afford the coverage would be the most extreme," Sanford said. "That concerns us."

The plan presented to the teachers also calls for the district to "tier" its health benefit plan to offer coverage only to those employees working 30 hours or more.

"That's not a tiered system. That's just a cut-off," Sanford said.

He said employees that work less than 75 percent of the time would receive no benefit at all. There are many employees who work for less money because they rely on the accompanying health benefits, he said.

"You run the risk of losing quite a few employees, we feel," Sanford said.

It would also raise the family deductible, he said, to twice the individual deductible of $2,000. And the proposal didn't make clear whether the district would continue paying a percentage of family premiums, he said. The district now pays 71 percent of the family premium, and 100 percent for employees.

The plan isn't equitable, Sanford said, because new teachers would be paying a larger percentage of their salaries for health care costs than higher paid administrators would.

For families with medical expenses that meet the $4,000 deductible, and a $1,000 health savings account, Sanford said the out-of-pocket cost for health care would be $3,000.

For a new teacher, Sanford said: "That would represent a $3,000 hit to a $30,000 salary. That's a 10 percent cost to a young family, a young teacher."

Bauman said she was disappointed that the teachers' initial response was so negative.

"If this were a concept, you should not have presented it as a proposal," Sanford said. By law, he said, that makes it a proposal, putting the teachers in a position of having to accept or counter it, without complete information.

Bauman said the minutes of the earlier meeting "reflect the truth," and that it was unfortunate that it was labeled the way it was.

"I find it unfortunate that you've chosen to make this adversarial, rather than collaborative," said Tom Hamilton, a trustee and member of the negotiating team. "It's unfortunate that you're going to get hung up on a header on a PowerPoint."

Sanford and Kristi Milan, the president of the teachers association, said they found out following the meeting, from the insurance professionals, that there was no $2,000 deductible plan offered.

Wendell Wardell, the district's chief operating officer, said they now have one being worked on by Blue Cross, through the state insurance pool, and expect to have those details within a day.

Teacher Derek Kohles said the negotiations are adversarial.

"It feels like we're being told what we're going to work on, how we're going to work on it," Kohles said.

Several times during the meeting, Bauman said they need to move forward and look at making a dramatic change to the health benefit plan, because the district faces a shortfall of $3 million and a 13 percent increase on the existing health benefit plan.

"We are going to have to make significant reductions in staff, class sizes will go up, busing will be privatized," Bauman said, if they can't agree on the health savings plan.

Both negotiating teams agreed to create a committee, with two members of each team, to explore the health savings account plan further.

They will meet again on May 14 at 4:30 p.m. at Woodland Middle School.